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... (show more)
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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In the process of their research, Jim Collins and his team sifts through over a thousand companies to discover eleven good to great companies. From... (show more)
In the process of their research, Jim Collins and his team sifts through over a thousand companies to discover eleven good to great companies. From these, the same lessons rise to the top again and again. Leaders of good to great companies are not egotistical jerks. Great companies focus on having the right people in place. They are honest about the hard realities, yet they do not lose hope. Great companies are focused. They believe in discipline.
As obvious as the conclusions were, I was not bored with the book. In fact, the research and the writing were sobering. It was like finally shaking off all those "latest-and-greatest" fads from a plethora of management books.
The only difficulty that I had with the book involved some of the company choices. As time goes on, some of the "great" companies are no longer great. The most eye-rolling example for me was Fannie Mae. Nonetheless, Collins addresses even that concern in the book. Companies need to remain diligent. It's easy to fall by the wayside. Usually a fall from grace is precipitated on failing one or more of the lessons outlined in the book.
Read it if youre planning to run a great company! (show less)
Wow, this book is powerfully stupid. All the techniques given for a company to rise from being "good" to "great" are reflections based upon common... (show more)
Wow, this book is powerfully stupid. All the techniques given for a company to rise from being "good" to "great" are reflections based upon common sense. There is almost nothing mystical or insightful offered by Collins: "Hire the right people", "Cut costs", and "Have a strategy you follow", are examples. Not only does the book offer very little insight, but it also manages to screw up its choices for model companies which have become "great". The whole is chock full of banal rhetoric (which lowers my respect for Stanford, where the author is from, and for MBA graduates who actually study this stuff) that aims only to please mass audiences.
The ironic thing (which is compounded by the fact that the author's first work is titled, "Built to Last") is that several of the model companies that Collins picked went bust or are near it in light of recent economic struggles (e.g. Circuit City, Fannie Mae). For example, he devotes pages to Fannie Mae's unique ability to assess mortgage-based risk. LOL. Top that off with the fact that Collins supposedly spent six years doing the research for this book, and you get one hilariously outdated and laughable work. (show less)
Good to Great is a well-structured, no-nonsense book about how to run a good company but to take it to the next step: making it great. While much of the content is common sense, Collins structures his arguments well using examples of corporations from the U.S. The lessons learned from how Wells Fargo was run is still very pertinent in today's financial sector.
It is very ironic, if not at least unfortunate, that many companies have gone bust! Examples: Fannie Mae, Circuit City.
Does this l... (show more)
Good to Great is a well-structured, no-nonsense book about how to run a good company but to take it to the next step: making it great. While much of the content is common sense, Collins structures his arguments well using examples of corporations from the U.S. The lessons learned from how Wells Fargo was run is still very pertinent in today's financial sector.
It is very ironic, if not at least unfortunate, that many companies have gone bust! Examples: Fannie Mae, Circuit City.
Does this lower the value of the book? No. these companies were well-run at the circumstances of that time. This includes the competition, environment, the economic health when those companies rose to be great companies.
This book belongs on the shelves of entrepreneurs. It is a must read and is applicable to a company that is big or small, and regardless of the industry the company operates in. (show less)
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Good to Great has been a best-seller for a long time now. I have had it on my shelf, but only recently finished reading it. Jim Collins and his team researched and conclusions were drawn. Now, where are the Good to Great companies that he used as examples? Several have imploded - Circuit City, Fannie Mae, etc. So, what happened?
I was able to filter out some great priniciples but not sure that they are the whole picture or these "great" companies would not be bankrupt or ethically... (show more)
Good to Great has been a best-seller for a long time now. I have had it on my shelf, but only recently finished reading it. Jim Collins and his team researched and conclusions were drawn. Now, where are the Good to Great companies that he used as examples? Several have imploded - Circuit City, Fannie Mae, etc. So, what happened?
I was able to filter out some great priniciples but not sure that they are the whole picture or these "great" companies would not be bankrupt or ethically corrupt if they were truly great. I would like to see Mr. Collins write a follow-up or an explanation to what has happened to the "good to great" concept.
I know he could only use public companies because of access to financial information but it would be interesting to see what he could conclude about some private companies based on their longevity and known facts. (show less)
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Mini Review of Good to Great
Although the book can be a bit redundant, it has excellent case studies. As someone now working in a big company, it helped shift my perspective on a few things and to think about the big picture at our big company. It's realistic, not just idealistic.
Elizabeth Werhane about 1 year agoThis book has been added to these lists:
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