Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't | Jim Collins

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't | Jim Collins | Intriguing. A good read for anyone in an organization.

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Good to Great: Why...

	Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't Jim Collins Collins Business, 2001 - 300 pages average customer review:based on 703 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Good To Great Is The Best Business Book That I Have Ever Read!!

This book does a great job of making business interesting. It literally reads like a novel. I couldn't put it down, even though I just completed it for the third time. Although I do not subscribe to it in totality, its concepts are based upon thousands of research hours and are well presented with plenty of examples from the famous companies included in the book. I have handed it out to the management team of a recently purchased company and have no doubt that at the very least it will stimulate strategic thinking. I recommend it highly!

Intriguing. A good read for anyone in an organization.

Fascinating case studies and example from the business world of success, failure and the reason for both. This is a good read for anyone interested in transforming their business or organization. More than that, it's a great read for anyone who is even part of a business or organization.

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Well presented analysis

Jim Collins is a business professor and author of three previous business books. Good to Great seeks to answer the questions, "Is it possible for a good company with an ingrained culture of average performance to become truly great?" and, if so, "how?"

Indeed, Collins argues, the answer is "yes," (hence the name oft the book) and then provides seven characteristics of companies that make such a transition. After engaging in a thorough analysis of several years worth of Fortune 500 companies (the research is explained in the first chapter and several indices), Collins identified a handful of companies that made such a leap (in markets average or difficult markets) and contrasted them with nearly identical companies that remained average.

Collins argues that good-to-great companies begin with disciplined people--putting a highly self-differentiated person as the CEO (or its equivalent), and then hiring other self-differentiated people/firing weak or aggressive people/placing strong employees in places with the most growth potential. Good-to-great companies also practiced disciplined thought in that they came to terms with difficult facts while maintaining optimism and followed a business plan with a limited focus. Finally, these companies displayed disciplined action in that they were self-disciplined (no bureaucratic policies or carrot-and-stick policies were needed to force productivity), and used technology wisely to keep within their narrow focus (not adopting technology for technology's sake or allowing its siren song to change the narrow business plan). Finally, Collins argues that success was difficult for these good-to-great companies to come by at first, but then mild successes yielded moderate successes; moderate successes yielded good successes; good successes yielded wild success to the point that the organization seemed to be on autopilot.

I found Collin's arguments compelling and I enjoyed his writing style. He presented concepts in memorable ways and presented stories to illustrate his points. I also appreciated his constant continual comparison of specific good-to-great companies with always-good companies (and even declining companies). It should be noted that this reader is not a businessman and some of the jargon was lost on me, but nevertheless the use of jargon didn't prevent me from understanding his main points.

It should also be noted that Collins has written a follow-up monograph for those in not-for-profit organizations. This reader found that there were certain aspects of this business book that didn't loan itself well to church work or work in other social sector organizations. The monograph is called "Good to Great and the Social Sector"

Recommended.

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Excellent book but I have learned all this from Peter Drucker

This book is a must-have but only because it is a concise summary of a much more detailed work by Peter Drucker.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, page 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

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