Good to Great

Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't

By Jim Collins

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Average Rating: (See all 5 reviews) Format: Hardcover, 320 pages Other Information: Illustrated Published In: United States, October 2001 Quantity Available: 3 24 hour shipping The coauthor of the bestselling "Built to Last" now presents a blueprint for transforming good companies into great ones. Charts & graphs throughout. From The Publisher: 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 hiscrew 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? Publisher: HarperBusiness ISBN: 0066620996 EAN: 9780066620992 Dimensions: 24.23 x 16.28 x 2.72 centimeters (0.56 kg)

i thought that this was a great book to help you on your journey to personal and business success, and how to get along with co-workers properly, and function a healthy business life etc. really very interesting, i know it doesnt sound all that fantastic, but if you ever get the chance to, definitely give it a read.

One of the best books I have ever read to do with Leadership, and how to make the transition from where you are to where you want to be. Very affirming of the things you do, knowing that they work, and gives you the confidence to never let go of those things. Also provides a common language to talk with those around you about what you are doing and where you want to go.

Jim Collins, co-author of Built To Last, has done it again! This time he spent 5 years trying to find out what differentiates good companies from great companies. This study can be applied to entrepreneurial ventures and to current corporate America. After reading this book you may see your company from a much different perspective than in the past and it may have you thinking about the effectiveness of senior managers within your company. I believe it is a book that business executives will read and keep handy for reference.
This book is a study of companies that exceed their industry, the overall stock market and produce PHENOMENAL returns over a 15-year period (15 of them are very "normal" years and the next 15 years are full of explosive growth). Some key points you will take away from this book include:

1) Growth in most companies came after years and years of trying to adapt / mold a concept into something the company truly believed in. Once this happened the growth engine got going.
2) Great managers worry more about getting the right people on board and the wrong people off board BEFORE they establish a corporate stategy.
3) Most great CEOs came from within their own ranks and weren't recruited from the outside.
4) Executive compensation didn't appear to be a key driver of corporate performance
5) The respective great companies exceeded the overall stock market in creating shareholder value by at least 3x during their 15 year run measured (some for many more years). While some may say this is not much think about the steel industry and how many are filing for bankruptcy. Nucor Steel still managed to beat the S&P by more than 3x.
6) The great companies in this book blew away their comparable peer group. Wells Fargo vs. Bank of America, Kroger vs. other grocery chains, Walgreens vs. Eckerd, etc.
7) Collins describes a Level 5 leader. After reading this section I was amazed at how many CEOs I recognized as not being Level 5 leaders. This may, in the near future, shake up executive compensation plans, CEO searches and potentially affect corporate governance.
8) Technology accelerated a transformation but was regarded as a tool. It didn't define the company.
9) M&A activity played virtually no role in going from good to great.

thoroughly enjoying the challenges it is putting before me for my company to succeed.

Ho hum. Interesting read, but not exactly riviting with nuggets of information. It's pretty much the summary results of an indepth survey covering large American companies, and what differed in them compared to competitors. There is some good 'take home' thoughts, but I think if you were actually looking for ways to take your company from Good to Great, you'd need to read a few more books after this one to get the information.

I first purchase this Good to Great book for myself as it has been well spoken about as a business book with direction I have since purchase an additional three books for my managers so that we can read with a view to implement some of these idea. RG Torpedo7. As a passing comment Fishpond are much easier, quicker and cheaper to deal with than Amazon.