Achieving sustainable growth is a perennial concern for senior managers. Yet the strategies they pursue often capture few or none of the intended benefits. Their efforts are rewarded with outright failure or with short-lived wins followed by rapid deterioration. Consider these cases of thwarted initiatives:

• Growing too fast. History is littered with companies that experience "boom and bust": rapid growth followed by steep decline, often into oblivion. In the UK life insurance industry, London Life pursued an aggressive salesforce growth strategy that put it out of business by 1987. Its hiring practices had set off a vicious spiral of falling skill levels, flagging motivation, and sinking performance.
• Too much too soon. A polymer company spotted an attractive, fast-growing market and invested heavily in new plant and equipment to meet demand. Four rival suppliers responded by dropping their prices. Though the company succeeded in achieving a large share, eroding margins made the market unprofitable.
• From glitter to glut. A leading high-tech company saw first-month orders for its latest product exceed capacity by 30 percent, and got its suppliers to increase their raw component stocks. Two months later, as stockpiles built up,...