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davemmett's review against another edition
5.0
Glad I finally got around to reading this - it's been on my bookshelf for about 3 years.
Reading through some of the comments that others have left on this book, there seems to be a "yeah, but it's just common sense" attitude to a lot of the advice and analysis from this book (obviously, every company wants to hire great people). But the critical concept that I took away is the idea of Discipline, and how critical it is to be disciplined in your actions if you want to be great.
All companies want to hire great people, but most aren't willing to let go of the merely good people to make way for the great. Many companies want to work towards something more than money, but most aren't willing to stop doing the profitable things that are distracting them from that mission. Most companies want to understand the real reason for their failures, but few are willing to listen honestly to their team/customers to uncover the root causes.
I also really enjoyed the section on the role that technology plays in great companies, it connects very well with the ideas from [b:The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth|2618|The Innovator's Solution Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth|Clayton M. Christensen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1408345956s/2618.jpg|138639].
Reading through some of the comments that others have left on this book, there seems to be a "yeah, but it's just common sense" attitude to a lot of the advice and analysis from this book (obviously, every company wants to hire great people). But the critical concept that I took away is the idea of Discipline, and how critical it is to be disciplined in your actions if you want to be great.
All companies want to hire great people, but most aren't willing to let go of the merely good people to make way for the great. Many companies want to work towards something more than money, but most aren't willing to stop doing the profitable things that are distracting them from that mission. Most companies want to understand the real reason for their failures, but few are willing to listen honestly to their team/customers to uncover the root causes.
I also really enjoyed the section on the role that technology plays in great companies, it connects very well with the ideas from [b:The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth|2618|The Innovator's Solution Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth|Clayton M. Christensen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1408345956s/2618.jpg|138639].
sebarose's review against another edition
1.0
How do great companies like Circuit City and Fannie Mae become and stay great while companies like GE and At&t just slog along? Circuit City and Fannie Mae are awesome and fantastic and are sure to be companies we look to far into the future for their management and business wisdom. Oh wait.
Hindsight aside, I couldn't finish the book because level five leadership skills (level one to four are not defined - save that level one vodka is required to read the book) in the three circles of success functioning on the flywheel and not the doom loop hut hutting to the hedgehog principle of the engineered DNA of success are innate gene-based, scientifically researched, learned behaviors!
In other words, the entire thing is hogwash coded into meaningless catch phrases and sold as deep thoughts. The book talked me into buying some Circuit City stock, though.
Hindsight aside, I couldn't finish the book because level five leadership skills (level one to four are not defined - save that level one vodka is required to read the book) in the three circles of success functioning on the flywheel and not the doom loop hut hutting to the hedgehog principle of the engineered DNA of success are innate gene-based, scientifically researched, learned behaviors!
In other words, the entire thing is hogwash coded into meaningless catch phrases and sold as deep thoughts. The book talked me into buying some Circuit City stock, though.
taracanread's review against another edition
5.0
Loved this book. So much applicable information. Making a note to read it again down the road.
erikars's review against another edition
5.0
Such an excellent book on how a business can become great! Collins and his team researched companies that had transitioned from good performance relative to the general market to a sustained period of great performance. By comparing those companies to others that were similar during the good period but remained merely good, they came away with a set of principles that can move a company from good to great.
The most important lesson, and the theme that's common throughout, is that it's no one thing or moment. All of the good to great principles take a long time to get results (think years, not months). They require sustained effort; stop practicing the principle and a company will lose its greatness.
So what are the principles?
First, great companies are ambitious with respect to the company's success but personally humble. They're willing to make big bets and dramatic changes (as well as small bets and incremental changes), and they always keep the company's long term success in mind as they do so. They aren't driven by ego, external pressure, or short term profit. They also tend to be personally humble, seeing failures as opportunities for improvement and successes as outside themselves -- either due to the effort of others or, if there's no obvious cause, due to luck. Compare this to leaders who fail to lead their companies to greatness. These leaders tend to attribute success to their own virtues and failures to bad luck or others.
Great companies focus on making sure that they have the right people in the right positions. They don't compromise on hiring because they need someone now. Having the right people, rather than the people with merely the currently relevant skills, makes a company more able to adapt to change. It also reduces the need for explicit motivation -- the right people in the right positions will be intrinsically motivated to help the company succeed. But who are the right people? The right people are the people whose core values align with your company's core values. There is no single right set of core values, but without alignment to those values, whatever they are, a person won't be the right person, no matter how otherwise qualified. Collins cautions against using this as an excuse to fire people though. If someone isn't a fit, then it's better for the company and for them if the situation is dealt with as promptly as possible, but don't be too quick to confuse the company being a bad fit with the particular role being a bad fit. Also, this rigor has to be applied more strictly the higher up you go in a company hierarchy, not less. The wrong person at a higher level will have a much broader negative influence than the wrong person at the leaves of the org chart.
The third principle for a great company is the delicate balance between confronting reality and keeping faith in the company's ability to succeed. Success comes when a company repeatedly makes good decisions. The way a company makes good decisions is by always being strictly committed to the brutal facts of reality. Looking at the "scary squiggly things" under the rocks, as one executive put it. Most companies spend a lot of time discussing opportunities or what they think they're doing right, but they don't spend a lot of time talking about the scary things, the things they fear will lead to their failure. Focusing on the positive isn't the only way companies avoid reality. Another one, and a particularly toxic one, is when pleasing particular leaders becomes more important than facing external reality. The book goes on to give a number of tips for how to keep those brutal facts coming in the face of people wanting to please those in charge.
This steadfast focus on facts, however, needs to be balanced by faith that the company can prevail. Not that it can necessarily prevail by doing what it's currently doing, but faith that whatever may come, the company can make it through and come out stronger than before. This balance is illustrated with what Collins calls the Stockdale Paradox, after Admiral Jim Stockdale. Stockdale credited getting through an 8 year imprisonment in Vietnam under bad conditions to this balance. As he put it, "This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end -- which you can never afford to lose -- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."
The fourth principle is that great companies have a hedgehog concept, a simple idea that drives everything they do. This clarity keeps the company from going off on tangents but also opens the company to possibilities that may look very different from what they do today, but which align with their core idea. Not just any idea makes a good hedgehog concept. To be successful at driving a company, the concept should be at the intersection of what the company can be the best in the world at given it's capabilities (notably, this may not be something the company is currently doing), be something which drives a successful economic engine, and be something which the people at the company can feel deeply passionate about. When an idea hits all three of these, then it can drive a virtuous circle of hard work, profit, and new ideas which leads to greatness. One of the core points of the chapter is that "A Hedgehog Concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. It is an understanding of what you can be the best at" -- facing the brutal reality emphasized in the previous principle.
Next is a culture of internalized disciple. Discipline doesn't mean bureaucracy, strict leadership, or inflexibility. Rather, Collins sees those as an outgrowth of a lack of internalized discipline. Rather, the important discipline is the internal discipline of people at all levels of the company to always take actions aligned with the Hedgehog Concept and core values of the company. This is the sort of discipline that allows people to say "no" to a good opportunity if it isn't aligned with the company's core mission. This sort of discipline is accomplished by putting disciplined individuals in a system that is manged to align people's incentives with the company's goals. Note, in particular, that it's the system that is manged, not the individuals.
The last principle is really more of an anti-principle. Collins and his team found that technology does not cause greatness. It can accelerate the rise to greatness of a company that's already on its way, but technology is not a magic bullet. It can even be a danger. One ways companies lose their way on the path to greatness or fall from greatness is to get too worried about chasing the latest technological trend before understanding how (or if) it fits into the company's Hedgehog Concept.
Collins then discusses the flywheel, which isn't so much a principle as a common theme underlying all of the principles. Good to great companies are not overnight successes. They don't have an "aha!" moment. Rather, their greatness is built off of consistent small actions, which build momentum over time. This isn't to say their actions don't change over time. Rather, it's that the actions that seem to have propelled a company into greatness are inseparable from what came before. They focused on continued improvement and consistent delivery of results aligned with an overall goal that the people in the company believe in. A corollary of this is that people at a company with the potential for greatness don't need to be explicitly motivated; their goal is motivating in its own right.
I really enjoyed reading this. The challenge is that these principles are challenging to apply in practice. They require consistency and discipline, both of which can be hard to maintain in the face of ever changing pressures. Which is why, as Collins points out, in the end, very few companies are great, less stay great, and few make the transition from merely good to great.
The most important lesson, and the theme that's common throughout, is that it's no one thing or moment. All of the good to great principles take a long time to get results (think years, not months). They require sustained effort; stop practicing the principle and a company will lose its greatness.
So what are the principles?
First, great companies are ambitious with respect to the company's success but personally humble. They're willing to make big bets and dramatic changes (as well as small bets and incremental changes), and they always keep the company's long term success in mind as they do so. They aren't driven by ego, external pressure, or short term profit. They also tend to be personally humble, seeing failures as opportunities for improvement and successes as outside themselves -- either due to the effort of others or, if there's no obvious cause, due to luck. Compare this to leaders who fail to lead their companies to greatness. These leaders tend to attribute success to their own virtues and failures to bad luck or others.
Great companies focus on making sure that they have the right people in the right positions. They don't compromise on hiring because they need someone now. Having the right people, rather than the people with merely the currently relevant skills, makes a company more able to adapt to change. It also reduces the need for explicit motivation -- the right people in the right positions will be intrinsically motivated to help the company succeed. But who are the right people? The right people are the people whose core values align with your company's core values. There is no single right set of core values, but without alignment to those values, whatever they are, a person won't be the right person, no matter how otherwise qualified. Collins cautions against using this as an excuse to fire people though. If someone isn't a fit, then it's better for the company and for them if the situation is dealt with as promptly as possible, but don't be too quick to confuse the company being a bad fit with the particular role being a bad fit. Also, this rigor has to be applied more strictly the higher up you go in a company hierarchy, not less. The wrong person at a higher level will have a much broader negative influence than the wrong person at the leaves of the org chart.
The third principle for a great company is the delicate balance between confronting reality and keeping faith in the company's ability to succeed. Success comes when a company repeatedly makes good decisions. The way a company makes good decisions is by always being strictly committed to the brutal facts of reality. Looking at the "scary squiggly things" under the rocks, as one executive put it. Most companies spend a lot of time discussing opportunities or what they think they're doing right, but they don't spend a lot of time talking about the scary things, the things they fear will lead to their failure. Focusing on the positive isn't the only way companies avoid reality. Another one, and a particularly toxic one, is when pleasing particular leaders becomes more important than facing external reality. The book goes on to give a number of tips for how to keep those brutal facts coming in the face of people wanting to please those in charge.
This steadfast focus on facts, however, needs to be balanced by faith that the company can prevail. Not that it can necessarily prevail by doing what it's currently doing, but faith that whatever may come, the company can make it through and come out stronger than before. This balance is illustrated with what Collins calls the Stockdale Paradox, after Admiral Jim Stockdale. Stockdale credited getting through an 8 year imprisonment in Vietnam under bad conditions to this balance. As he put it, "This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end -- which you can never afford to lose -- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."
The fourth principle is that great companies have a hedgehog concept, a simple idea that drives everything they do. This clarity keeps the company from going off on tangents but also opens the company to possibilities that may look very different from what they do today, but which align with their core idea. Not just any idea makes a good hedgehog concept. To be successful at driving a company, the concept should be at the intersection of what the company can be the best in the world at given it's capabilities (notably, this may not be something the company is currently doing), be something which drives a successful economic engine, and be something which the people at the company can feel deeply passionate about. When an idea hits all three of these, then it can drive a virtuous circle of hard work, profit, and new ideas which leads to greatness. One of the core points of the chapter is that "A Hedgehog Concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. It is an understanding of what you can be the best at" -- facing the brutal reality emphasized in the previous principle.
Next is a culture of internalized disciple. Discipline doesn't mean bureaucracy, strict leadership, or inflexibility. Rather, Collins sees those as an outgrowth of a lack of internalized discipline. Rather, the important discipline is the internal discipline of people at all levels of the company to always take actions aligned with the Hedgehog Concept and core values of the company. This is the sort of discipline that allows people to say "no" to a good opportunity if it isn't aligned with the company's core mission. This sort of discipline is accomplished by putting disciplined individuals in a system that is manged to align people's incentives with the company's goals. Note, in particular, that it's the system that is manged, not the individuals.
The last principle is really more of an anti-principle. Collins and his team found that technology does not cause greatness. It can accelerate the rise to greatness of a company that's already on its way, but technology is not a magic bullet. It can even be a danger. One ways companies lose their way on the path to greatness or fall from greatness is to get too worried about chasing the latest technological trend before understanding how (or if) it fits into the company's Hedgehog Concept.
Collins then discusses the flywheel, which isn't so much a principle as a common theme underlying all of the principles. Good to great companies are not overnight successes. They don't have an "aha!" moment. Rather, their greatness is built off of consistent small actions, which build momentum over time. This isn't to say their actions don't change over time. Rather, it's that the actions that seem to have propelled a company into greatness are inseparable from what came before. They focused on continued improvement and consistent delivery of results aligned with an overall goal that the people in the company believe in. A corollary of this is that people at a company with the potential for greatness don't need to be explicitly motivated; their goal is motivating in its own right.
I really enjoyed reading this. The challenge is that these principles are challenging to apply in practice. They require consistency and discipline, both of which can be hard to maintain in the face of ever changing pressures. Which is why, as Collins points out, in the end, very few companies are great, less stay great, and few make the transition from merely good to great.
raychelllibby's review against another edition
2.0
Hardcover |
Reading this book was like eating a hearty horse stew, there were a couple nutritious morsels, but overall, it’s made from a dead horse beaten to a damn pulp.
It’s a business book written in the year 2000, so that alone should inform you that it’s not going to be all that ground breaking. I’m just happy that I was able to read it as quickly as I did so I can move on to something better.
Why did I read it? It was a book club choice. I don’t regret reading it.
Reading this book was like eating a hearty horse stew, there were a couple nutritious morsels, but overall, it’s made from a dead horse beaten to a damn pulp.
It’s a business book written in the year 2000, so that alone should inform you that it’s not going to be all that ground breaking. I’m just happy that I was able to read it as quickly as I did so I can move on to something better.
Why did I read it? It was a book club choice. I don’t regret reading it.
aerofinity's review against another edition
5.0
4.5/5 ✨
I really enjoyed this Business School classic. The book is based on extensive research on a set of companies which were chugging along nicely and then experienced a sustained period of outperforming the market more than 6x. Jim Collins and his team set out to isolate the core factors that made these companies great when compared with their competitors. The resulting information is inspiring and powerful, and is centred around some simple factors:
- Leadership that is disciplined and focused on the benefit of the company above all else. Comparison companies too often had leadership focused on ego, empire building, and did not consider succession planning adequately.
- Hiring policies that are laser focused on ensuring that only the best people with the right fit get on the bus and that any mistakes in hiring are rectify quickly. Pull the Band-Aid off - it’s better for everyone!
- Discovering what your company can be the very best in the world at, and going after that with unswerving determination (“hedgehog” concept in the jargon - after the parable of the hedgehog and the fox). Comparison companies that did not perform well didn’t stick to their core mission but were sidetracked by shiny objects and acquisitions.
- And I saved the best for last - my favourite concept in the book is the “flywheel” metaphor. This relates to gradually building a set of small wins over a long period of time. Like a flywheel, initial change and wins are hard as you press against the heavy object, but gradually the changes and improvements put into place compound and build off each other and eventually the flywheel is spinning rapidly with unstoppable momentum. That overnight success only took 10 years. This is a powerful metaphor to understand the strength of many pushes in the same direction as momentum is built, as well as the destructive implications of changing direction too rapidly and without due care and consideration.
Overall a fantastic book filled with powerful and striking metaphors, and timeless wisdom. I do have some small quibbles with choice of target companies in the study, eg Philip Morris is complicit in the death of millions and hardly a subject of admiration, even if highly profitable.
Definitely a must read for all company owners or indeed anyone that wants to build something great.
I really enjoyed this Business School classic. The book is based on extensive research on a set of companies which were chugging along nicely and then experienced a sustained period of outperforming the market more than 6x. Jim Collins and his team set out to isolate the core factors that made these companies great when compared with their competitors. The resulting information is inspiring and powerful, and is centred around some simple factors:
- Leadership that is disciplined and focused on the benefit of the company above all else. Comparison companies too often had leadership focused on ego, empire building, and did not consider succession planning adequately.
- Hiring policies that are laser focused on ensuring that only the best people with the right fit get on the bus and that any mistakes in hiring are rectify quickly. Pull the Band-Aid off - it’s better for everyone!
- Discovering what your company can be the very best in the world at, and going after that with unswerving determination (“hedgehog” concept in the jargon - after the parable of the hedgehog and the fox). Comparison companies that did not perform well didn’t stick to their core mission but were sidetracked by shiny objects and acquisitions.
- And I saved the best for last - my favourite concept in the book is the “flywheel” metaphor. This relates to gradually building a set of small wins over a long period of time. Like a flywheel, initial change and wins are hard as you press against the heavy object, but gradually the changes and improvements put into place compound and build off each other and eventually the flywheel is spinning rapidly with unstoppable momentum. That overnight success only took 10 years. This is a powerful metaphor to understand the strength of many pushes in the same direction as momentum is built, as well as the destructive implications of changing direction too rapidly and without due care and consideration.
Overall a fantastic book filled with powerful and striking metaphors, and timeless wisdom. I do have some small quibbles with choice of target companies in the study, eg Philip Morris is complicit in the death of millions and hardly a subject of admiration, even if highly profitable.
Definitely a must read for all company owners or indeed anyone that wants to build something great.
itsabear7's review against another edition
4.0
I omitted reading the methodology sections, as I felt little need to question that data sets, and thought the methodology was reasonably well discussed throughout the text of the book.
While I noted that some of the "Good to Great" companies could not sustain their success into current times (this book was published in 2001), I found the principles to be interesting and compelling. I was prompted to read this book based on a management class I was taking that referenced the principle "First Who... Then What". I think that idea is by far the most important take-away of this book. With the right people aboard for the right goals, you can achieve goals and build a great organization.
While I noted that some of the "Good to Great" companies could not sustain their success into current times (this book was published in 2001), I found the principles to be interesting and compelling. I was prompted to read this book based on a management class I was taking that referenced the principle "First Who... Then What". I think that idea is by far the most important take-away of this book. With the right people aboard for the right goals, you can achieve goals and build a great organization.
kimmeyer's review against another edition
4.0
I'm not interested in business, at all, but this was still pretty compelling.