Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
By Jim Collins

Product Description

 

The Challenge
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning.

But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

The Study
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

The Standards
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world’s greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

The Comparisons
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?

Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness — why some companies make the leap and others don’t.

The Findings
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:

• Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
• The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.
• A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
• The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

“Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, “fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”

Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?

 

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10
• Released on: 2001-10-16
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 300 pages

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com’s Best of 2001
Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, “Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?” In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11–including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo–and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn’t require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. —Harry C. Edwards

Customer Reviews

A New Way to Look at Growing Your Business
“Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t” by Jim Collins was a real eye opener for me.

In this book, Jim Collins, observes 28 companies over the span of 5 years. Over this period of time 11 of the companies make the leap from “Good to Great”. The findings in this book were truly eye opening and inspirational. I loved the chapter on Level 5 leadership. Collins starts the chapter using a quote by Harry S. Truman “You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit”. This is the essence of the book.

I also loved that in this book he speaks about how the executives that ignited the transformation for companies that went from good to great, did not figure out how to drive the bus, but how to get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off) and then they figured out where to drive it.

Another book I really enjoyed reading about transformation is Being Here: Modern Day Tales of Enlightenment. Any person who is looking to grow their business would greatly benefit from reading both these books.

Good to Great
The condition of this book was excellent. I recieved it in a very timely manner. If you currently own or are looking to own your own business, this book is invaluable. The concepts are concrete, realistic, and attainable. I highly recommend this book.

A Book That Gets Down To Business
If you are like me and struggle to keep a business running at a profitable level, then you need books like this one. In my opinion, “The Businessman’s Bible” is an alternative title for this great and informative text.

This book is gleaned from facts acquired through years of researching the ups and downs of thousands of companies, to learn what works and why, and what definitely should be avoided in the business world.

If you are in business or even contemplating going into business, then you must read this book.

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