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.

Real Life Dramas – Volume One

Darren G. Burton

SiX THINK HATS

 
Six Thinking Hats
By Edward de Bono

Customer Reviews

The Six Thinking Hats
Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats is a quick read.
I thought it was redundant and could have been half
as long. I Was bored at times. De Bono’s Six Hat Method
was intentionally designed to be simple. that is the beauty of it.
The six thinking hats can very easilily be applied to a meeting
in order to really get things moving and that is extremely valuable.
i believe people should read this book, not because its a good book,
but because what De Bono demonstrates is a very powerful toolway tool.
-Rogelio Potash
CPP

Brief yet entertaining
This is a short, easy-read book. Chapters are small with an introduction and summary to each colored hat.
De Bono not only criticizes our way of thinking, but gives a solution for a more productive thinking. While most successful people believe that they are competent at thinking and make no efforts to improve; De Bono presents a brilliant new method to tackle any problem that can be present during a decision making process.
His methodology is so simple that there are no theories, principles or models in the book. Overall this is an essential read for anybody interested in improving their thinking and facilitators running brainstorming sessions.
I found this book very useful and the time I spend reading it worth while. The method in the book of using six ways of looking at something, the six thinking hats does work in real life and gives benefit. I sincerely recommended it.

putting my yellow hat on
Six Thinking Hats was written by Edward de Bono. This is a great book to read not only if your a manager of a company and you want to make your meetings more productive but also an average person will be able to use de Bono’s methods to make good decisions. This book is a great read for people who typically don’t like to read, its easy to understand, it goes straight to the point, and at the end of it you’ll be thinking “its that simple?” And yes it is that simple, de Bono doesnt try to confuse you but he just makes you understand that thinking in 6 different ways is better than one.

This has been my first book that I’ve read from cover to cover since….elementary school and I enjoyed it. I would recommend this book to anyone especially people who are fed up of non productive meetings.