Shortly
after Jim Collins published this book in 2001 I read it.
Since then I
have used it as a guide for over fifty companies with which I've had the good
fortune to work.
The lesson
is simple.
If you want
your company to move from merely being "A Good Company" to being
"A Great Company" there are some actions and positions you should
take.
First, it is
important to understand that "Good" is the enemy of "Great"
and that danger can be summed up in a word "complacency"
Jim created
a research team of over twenty-six people who found eleven companies who met the qualifications of being "Great" i.e.
having stock market returns on investments over 300% higher than the market
average sustained over fifteen years.
The team
then identified eleven other companies in comparative industries that did not
meet the qualifications of 'Great'.
Walgreens is
a 'Great' company but Eckerd was not.
Circuit City
was a 'Great' company but Silo was not.
Circuit
City? That's right! A few of the selected companies didn't make it in the next
fifteen years.
Jim's answer
to that issue is in his 2009 book "How the mighty fall: and why some
companies never give up."
Enough of this rabbit trail.
Jim's team
asked the question, what does the 'great' company do differently than the 'good'
company in the same industry.
Then, having
created that list of 'Different Behaviors' they asked ' Do the 'Great'
companies have any of those 'Different Behaviors' in common?
They
discovered 7 behaviors that 'Great' companies shared and they explained
them in chapters 2 thru 8.
1. Level
5 Leadership
2. First Who...Then What
3. Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never
Lose Faith)
4. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within
the Three Circles)
5. A Culture of Discipline
6. Technology Accelerators
7. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop
It's funny
that I'm reviewing 'Good to Great' now after focusing on thirty other books in
this book review blog for Debby's wonderful Connext Nation group. It's funny
that it took me over two years and six months to review the book I use the
most.
There hasn't
been a week in the past fourteen years that I haven't mentioned to a client or
seminar participants or strangers in an elevator an 'Aha' that an idea in this
book generated.
In fact,
chapter 3, behavior 2 'First Who...Then What' radically changed my approach to
working with strategic planning and other operational challenges.
Like many
'Great Truths' which are painfully obvious after someone writes it down and
clarifies it's people first not strategies.
Get the
right people on the bus and they can figure where to go!
Please read
this book....it's great!
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