In a recently published book called Driving Honda, the author makes the case that Honda is one of the most innovative companies in the world. That innovation has certainly played out in the financial results of the company in that it has never posted a loss in its history. Honda’s operating profit ratios of about 5% consistently top the industry. Its stock price has just about doubled since September, 2008 when the economy crashed. Most impressive is that 75% of its cars and trucks sold in the last 25 years are still on the road.

In a recent interview with the CEO of the company, he discussed the company’s “protect and attack” strategy. The protect part consists of defending and rapidly expanding its core market in PC’s and the attack part has to do with preparing for a world dominated by mobile and the cloud. Regarding mobile, the plan is for the Motorola acquisition to assist Lenovo in moving from being the number two smartphone player in China and the number four worldwide into a more dominant position.

I am sure you have met people where it didn’t take long before you realized they are highly competitive. They hate to lose; but if they do, they want to play more to prove to themselves that they can prevail.

It is rather amazing to see so many successful companies stare at new ideas, do nothing, and get run over. The classic large-scale examples are Kodak and digital photography, Nokia and smartphones, and Blockbuster and DVD’s by mail and then movies via streaming.