When an airplane stalls, it’s no longer able to produce lift. When this occurs, there’s an insufficient amount of air traveling under the airplane’s wings to keep it up. As a result, the airplane will drop, thereby reducing its altitude, until the angle of attack is correctly adjusted. Unfortunately, it’s been the cause of too many jets crashes over the years.

The airplane stall reminds me of the dying organization and its inability to correct itself, so it’s in its stall. Unlike a jet airplane, there is no warning to an organization that they’re in a stall. They will continue to fail and will have no idea that they will have a crash of their own. Maybe it’s arrogance or maybe it’s organizational paralysis, but dying organizations have such difficulty in charting a new course. What worked 40 years ago may not work today, yet the dying organization never sees it.