Institutional decline

Listening to Jim Collins' 'How the Mighty Fall', in the car (wow - new bluetooth, making my previous i-phone, via hands free, sound dreadful).

He says, something like:

I've come to see institutional decline like a gradual disease:

Harder to detect, but easier to cure, in the early stages.

Easier to detect, but harder to cure, in the latter stages.

He's talking about companies, but I'm thinking about Churches. The same's true.