Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t (Good to Great, 1)

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A quick rundown of this product’s key features:

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?

Our Top Reviews

Reviewer: BJHarris
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: GOOD to GREAT…Highly Recommend
Review: Jim Collins states in his book, “Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that become great…We believe that almost any organization can substantially improve its stature and performance, perhaps even become great, if it conscientiously applies the frame work of ideas we’ve uncovered.” After reading that statement I became very curious and wanting to continue reading to see what are the components that make a good company to be a great company, in hopes of maybe being apply it myself one day I really enjoyed the way in which Collins organized the book. From his five year research study of 28 different companies Good to Great discusses key critical concepts revealed through his studies as to why some companies became successful great companies, while the others continued to be good. Collins found from his research within a great company you will have discipline people, with discipline thought, drives discipline actions. Within each discipline it is broken down into a subset of two components:I. Discipline People a. Level 5 Leadership b. First Who… Then WhatII. Discipline Thought a. Confront the Brutal facts b. Hedgehog ConceptsIII. Discipline Action a. Culture of Discipline b. Technology AcceleratorsI believe by organizing the book in this matter enabled me to really understand the severity of the critical components and how their relationships if applied will in allow a good company to become a great company. Starting with Discipline People, Collins conducted and analyzed his research by introducing the types of leaders you would find in a great company versus those in a just a good company and the characteristics that these great leaders possessed, such as humility and will. They lead with the interest of the company and not for their own selfish reasoning. Next was the First Who …Then what which discuss getting the right people on board and the wrong people out. Collins states, “People are not your most important assets. The right people are.” Collins stresses the importance of first getting the right people in the right places in your company and weeding out the wrong and then figure out where your company wants to go.Next is the Discipline Thought, within the subset of discipline thought a company must possess the ability to confront the brutal facts and not live in denial. Being able to do this will allow the company to stay updated and proactive when faced with making decisions. Collins presented a methodology for the companies to be able to face the truth. He says an organization must lead with questions not answers, engage in dialogue and debate, and use the “red flag mechanism” where anything that is red flagged is information that cannot be ignored and must be handled immediately. Collins also mentioned under the category of discipline thought is the Hedgehog Concept. The Hedgehog Concept is about a Fox and Hedgehog, where the Fox (good companies) knows a lot about variety of things whereas the Hedgehog (great companies) knew a lot about one thing. Being hedgehog is more beneficial for both the company and the individual because it the clarity drives focus and direction whereas the fox has neither one direction nor focus which can backfire later down the road.Lastly, having discipline people with discipline thoughts will drive to discipline action which uses the culture of discipline and technology as another tool to help transform the company from good to great. Collins also refers to the Flywheel Concept. He says that a good to great company never happens all at once it take a lot of effort and time to get it going, like the flywheel. The flywheel requires a lot of pushing to get it to turn and after x amount of time it will begin to gain momentum. Throughout the book Collins gives great examples for each discipline and its component and how it either went from good to great or continued to be good. Along with the examples Collins provides pleather of diagrams and charts in the appendix, which becomes a great reference for the reader and creates a better understanding of what is needed to go from a good company to a great company. Generally the book is a very easy read which makes it that much more interesting to want to apply to your company or even for yourself. It takes the feeling of the impossible away, like Collin stated, “We believe that almost any organization can substantially improve its stature and performance, perhaps even become great, if it conscientiously applies the frame work of ideas we’ve uncovered.” Overall if you are looking to transform your company, Good to Great is a read that I highly recommend.

Reviewer: Lonnie E. Holder
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Observations of Good Companies that Transitioned to Great
Review: In reading the reviews of this book you will likely think that either this book is a piece of trash, or a road map to being the greatest company on earth. However, this book is neither. What Jim Collins and his staff of researchers did was to analyze 1,435 companies that had appeared in the Fortune 500 to find 11 companies with a specific set of characteristics. A couple of the most key characteristics were that these companies had to have been good performers for a number of years and then gone through a transition phase where they achieved well above industry average in performance sustained for at least 15 years.Once these 11 companies were chosen along with comparison companies, Jim Collins and his research team looked for common characteristics between these companies. What they believe they found they defined as: having level 5 leadership; having the right people in the company; confronting the brutal facts of their situation; defining what a company is good at; discipline; and the flywheel effect. Collins also discusses the role of technology with an interesting conclusion. While you could likely have guessed some of what they found, Collin’s assertion is that a company that has transitioned from good to great and sustained that performance would have each of these characteristics.What makes this book a great read? The support Collins provides for his conclusions. Collins rigorously assembled facts and then attempted to infer the common factors between the selected companies. While you may argue whether the selected companies will be great in the future, or whether other great companies exist that also made a good to great transition, the fact remains that he and his team did not waver in their criteria and they were able to observe the common characteristics that are described in this book.The greatest difficulty with the book is that it does not provide a roadmap for any particular company to make the transition. The reader is left to determine how his company might be able to achieve the characteristics of a good-to-great company, or perhaps, how to eliminate the characteristics of a company that would prevent the company from being great, or perhaps even good. One general point of agreement is that each of the defined characteristics is worthy of achieving.There are a few weaknesses in book. One question that we asked (the leadership team of my company) was whether level 5 leadership could exist with second tier management and not with the top leader. Collins seemed to think that the top leader in the company needed to be a level 5 leader, but we thought that a level 4 leader with a strong level 5 leadership at the second tier could well accomplish the same goal. We also looked at the recent stock market performance of the 11 companies chosen and discovered that more recently some of these companies had performed very poorly. We believe that an effective follow up to this book would be an analysis of companies that went from good to great to good or less than good to see whether a failure in one of the identified factors was the cause of the drop.This book offers a lot of thought-provoking information. It is a widely-read book because of the methodology Collins used in his data collection. It helps that this book is well-written and a quick read. Neither makes this book a perfect business book, but certainly the conclusions should make us all consider how we can make our companies better. An excellent companion book to “Built to Last.”

Reviewer: ESA14
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: De los mejores libros que he leído sobre gestión empresarial. No vas a encontrar muchos tecnicismos ni estrategias financieras o corporativas específicas, sino todo un conjunto de directrices y paradigmas que debe adoptar una empresa que pretende diferenciarse de las demás. Se centra en principios tan importantes como el liderazgo, la proactividad, sesgos irracionales que provocan excesos de confianza y de alejan de la realidad, etc.Un muy buen libro, en definitiva.

Reviewer: ベイリー・ナイジェル
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is a fascinating book, based on several years of research, as opposed to just one person’s experience/opinion. If becoming great is interesting to you, this is probably a good read.

Reviewer: Kindle Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Insanely powerful by its own nature of timelessness but also its humility with which it comes up with factual observation, and not fancy management recommendations (DOs and DONTs).The most powerful key takeway for me is, when we align the right people, the right thinking, the right action course, over the long term, we’re dramatically increasing the odds of success. No matter the industry, the geography, and the product we sell (whether bleeding edge tech or legacy consumer business)

Reviewer: RODOLFO GUTIERREZ VERA
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Gran libro, lo recomiendo mucho, te abre la mente. Mas si tienes un negocio y lo quieres llevar al siguiente nivel

Reviewer: The Salary Coach
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Good to great summarises the findings from extensive research into what makes certain high performing companies outperform their peers. The findings are both interesting and capable of being replicated by any company that wishes to improve performance.This book is very concise and full of interesting case studies. It was one of the few occasions when I wished the book could have been a bit longer.Well researched, well written, well done!Here are some of the learnings I will be taking away from this book:• All Good to great (“GTG”) companies had a Level 5 leader• Level 5 leaders consistently exhibit humility, modesty and an ability to reign in their ego.• Many companies are drawn towards outgoing egocentric leaders and this is often the wrong choice.• Level 5 leaders are more interested in something larger and more lasting than their own career• GTG leaders concentrate on hiring the right people before deciding on strategy• Don’t compromise when hiring. If you’re not confident then keep looking• When someone needs to leave the company act quickly• Give your best people the best opportunities and not your biggest problems• GTG management teams have rigorous debates and aren’t afraid to share their views. But when a decision is made they act as one• GTG companies ensure information flows give management the right facts to manage the business effectively• GTG companies foster a culture where employee’s views are heard and acted upon• GTG companies review failures without negative consequences for the people involved• Figuring out how to motivate people is a waste of time. If you hire the right people they will motivate themselves.• Good to great companies did one thing exceptionally well and stuck to it (the hedgehog process)• GTG companies developed their strategy from a deep understanding of what they could be world class at. This was not a goal or intention but an understanding of reality• GTG companies typically focussed on one KPI e.g. profit per customer• GTG companies were incredibly disciplined and did not waste time and money on unrelated activities and acquisitions• GTG companies used technology as an accelerator of, not creator of, momentum• Careful consideration should be given to whether a given technology fits with your hedgehog concept• GTG companies often looked like an overnight success from the outside but in reality they were long in the making and a result of persistent action over a long period of time.• Preserve core values and purpose while strategies and practices endlessly adapt with the changing world

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