The author examines "commitment" - the tendency of business strategies to persist over time - and demonstrates with actual company examples how current decisions are constrained by past decisions and future decisions by current ones. Topics covered include four business conditions facing managers who look to the future: "locked-in" - when a company maintains a strategy as a result of massive investment; "locked-out" - the cost of lost opportunities that can never be pursued again; "lags" - making it imperative to stick with a strategy until certain key results are achieved; "inertia" - the tendency of a company to preserve the "status quo". The text also attempts to explain why one company's performance differs from its competitors.