by Jim Collins
“Some
of the key concepts discerned in the study (of companies that make the leap
from good to great and stay there) fly in the face of our modern business
culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”
I
love books that take conventional wisdom and turn it on its head. And this
book, while focused on business, offers fabulous lessons for organizations of
any kind. Jim Collins says about himself “We all have a strength or two in life , and I suppose mine is the
ability to take a lump of unorganized information, see patterns, and extract
order form the mess – to go from chaos to concept.” He and his team spent five
years doing just that - and the result is a unprecedented understanding of the
inner workings of good to great.
Here’s
a very quick summary of the characteristics they found in companies that had
made the leap from good to great:
Level 5 Leadership
“We
were surprised, shocked really, to discover the type of leadership required for
turning a good company into a great one. Compared to high-profile leaders with
big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great
leaders seem to have come from Mars. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy –
these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional
will.”
First Who . . . Then What
“We
expected the good-to-great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and
strategy. We found instead that they first got the right people on the bus, the
wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats – and then
figured out where to drive it.” The old adage “People are your most important
asset” turns out to be wrong. People are not your most important asset. The
right people are.
Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never
Lose Faith)
“We
learned that a former prisoner of war had more to teach us about what it takes
to find a path to greatness than most books on corporate strategy. Every
good-to-great company embraced what we came to call the Stockdale Paradox: You
must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end,
regardless of the difficulties AND at the same time have the discipline to
confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might
be.”
The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity
Within Three Circles)
“To
go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. Just
because something is your core business – just because you’ve been doing it for
years or perhaps decades – does not necessarily mean you can be the best in the
world at it. And if you cannot be the best in the world at your core business,
then your core business can’t form the basis of a great company. It must be
replaced with a simple concept that reflects deep understanding of three
intersecting circles: what you are deeply passionate about, what you can be the
best in the world at and what drives your economic engine.”
A Culture of Discipline
“All
companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies
have a culture of discipline. When you have disciplined people, you don’t need
hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy. When
you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls. When you
combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the
magical alchemy of great performance.”
Technology Accelerators
“Good-to-great
companies think differently about the role of technology. They never use
technology as the primary means of igniting a transformation. Yet,
paradoxically, they are pioneers in the application of carefully selected
technologies. We learned that technology by itself is never a primary, root
cause of either greatness or decline.”
The Flywheel and the Doom
Loop
“Those
who launch revolutions, dramatic change programs and wrenching restructurings
will almost certainly fail to make the leap from good to great. No matter how
dramatic the end result, the good-to-great transformations never happened in
one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one
killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, the
process resembled relentlessly pushing a giant heavy flywheel in one direction,
turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.”
If you're interested, read this Fast Company interview with author Jim Collins. It’s a
great overview of the book:
