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sutoscience's review against another edition
4.0
A thoughtful, interesting book on how to turn a good company into a great one and the importance of radical honesty
sarahanne8382's review against another edition
4.0
Jim Collins was already well-known for his research with Jerry Poras on Built to Last, which looked at common traits of perennially great companies, but he became even more so with it's follow-up. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t answered the biggest question that resulted from Built to Last by studying average companies that eventually became over-achievers like those in Built to Last, and determine the keys to their transition to greatness. Although Collins' work is focused on the business world, the results of his study are surprisingly applicable to other areas, including non-profit organizations such as libraries. To accentuate this wide applicability, Collins followed up Good to Great with the short companion piece, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, applying the model to organizations such as police departments, churches, and schools. This rather wide range of applicability can be both a blessing and a curse for this study of what makes companies great.
After years of exhaustive research, Collins' study was able to decipher a clear pattern of change identical in each of the good-to-great companies. The companies, as varied as Fannie Mae, Phillip Morris, Kimberly Clark, and Kroger, showed a history of at least ten years of average performance, followed by a clear transition point, after which the company outperformed the market by an average of at least three times over 15 years.
For every good to great company, the study also followed a comparison company in the same industry that performed similarly to the good to great company up to the transition point, after which the good to great company began its sharp upturn, while the comparison company remained stagnant. Six unsustained comparisons were also found in companies that began a good-to-great transition only to backslide back to average. When the comparisons and unsustained comparisons fail to follow Good to Great principles, Collins explains how the company's actions failed to follow the principles uncovered in the study.
What initially surprises me about Good to Great is how it immediately disregards the blind pursuit of profit as the only worthwhile goal of an excellent business. Instead, the good to great companies were truly focused on improving their company not specifically for the sake of making money, but instead to make themselves better at their core business. This instantly made me see how the book could be beneficial to libraries, which aren’t interested in making money, but do want to provide their patrons with the best service possible. Collins even acknowledges the wide applicability of Good to Great in Good to Great and the Social Sectors when he points out that the “critical distinction is not between business and social, but between great and good” (2).
While Good to Great and the Social Sectors makes the connection between Good to Great and non-profit organizations more explicit, the findings of Good to Great really are easily adaptable to social organization. While market performance is the metric for measuring success, that is the most strictly business oriented aspect of the book, and was not actually the strongest driving factor for good-to-great companies. Good-to-great companies instead discovered their own metric by which to measure success, closely tied to the unique role they identify for themselves to fill. Rather than focusing on the usual profit per store figure, Walgreens realized that they could be more successful if they measured success by profit per customer visit, which was more in line with their plan for expensive, but convenient store locations (Good to Great 104-8). While Walgreens still uses some measure of profit to quantify their success, it leaves the door open for non-profit organization to develop their own methods of measuring success.
While it’s nice that Good to Great can be so widely applicable, that may also be the book’s biggest fault. In order to make sense in a wide range of organizations, the principles of Good to Great have to be highly adaptive, making Collins’ numerous examples so varied that they sometimes seem rather convenient. When Kimberly Clarke made the gutsy decision to sell its numerous paper mills and devote itself solely to the risky consumer products industry or when Abbott decided move its focus from the potentially lucrative pharmaceutical industry to making affordable healthcare products, Collins explains how each of the Good to Great concepts contributed to the decision to make these shocking, but successful decisions.
However, when the comparison companies make equally drastic changes, they clearly are not operating within the Good to Great framework because their companies didn’t succeed. To be fair, Collins does explain which parts of each company’s plan works and which doesn’t, but it almost seems too neat and tidy that everything a company does right is because of Good to Great while everything wrong is not part of that framework.
One solution to this problem seems to be the concept of the flywheel (“The Fly Wheel and the Doom Loop”). While a company may implement some of the Good to Great concepts, if they don’t continually implement them, they will not achieve the stellar results. Just as one push after the other on a flywheel slowly builds up momentum until the wheel is spinning smoothly when a company begins implementing Good to Great principles, the same can happen when companies make bad decisions, propelling companies downwards rather than upwards.
While I am a little cynical about how clear-cut Collins’ results were, I generally agree with the Good to Great concepts. One point that I found particularly interesting was the chapter “Technology Accelerators,” which addressed our recent obsession on technology as a requirement of a successful business. The comparison companies blindly followed every new technological fad with no real sense of direction. On the other hand, the good-to-great companies were often pioneers in specific applications of technology directly related to their central purpose. The lesson: "Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure" (Good to Great, 156). If libraries, who often pride themselves on bringing technology to their patrons, can focus the role technology will play for them, they may be able to use their technology funds more efficiently.
The Hedgehog Concept has many applications for libraries. Good to Great explains the Hedgehog Concept as the intersection of the three questions: 1) What is your passion (in other words, what gets you excited)? 2) What can you be best in the world at (in other words, what are you uniquely skilled to do)? 3) What drives your economic engine (in other words, what will make you money) (Good to Great 94-110)? In Good to Great and the Social Sectors Collins modifies the third question slightly by asking “What drives your resource engine?” in other words, how do you ensure you receive the resources you need to continue doing what you’re doing (Social Sectors 18).
While libraries would love to be the one stop information source for everyone, realistically trying to fulfill that mission leaves everyone shortchanged. Assuming librarians have a passion for providing public access to information, that leaves libraries to figure out what role they’re uniquely situated to fulfill in their communities and how fulfilling that role can ensure they will continue to be funded. For example, a branch library in an immigrant neighborhood may realize that there’s a huge gap in ESL training. By helping their patrons learn English, they will be better able to participate in the political process and advocate continued library funding.
Once libraries have their Hedgehog Concepts in place, they can begin to ensure a culture of discipline, part of which involves making a “stop doing” list for all the activities staff devote time to that aren’t a part of your Hedgehog Concept. This is where you really begin to see how well crafted your Hedgehog Concept is. If you were too narrow, then your library can’t justify spending time on legitimate patron concerns, but if you’re too broad, staff are stretched too thin trying to be everything to everyone. Collins’ team found however, that if companies had already followed through on the earlier steps of the good-to-great transition (“Level 5 Leadership,” “First Who … Then What,” and “Confront the Brutal Facts”), then crafting an accurate Hedgehog Concept wasn’t a challenge (Good to Great 139-41). Thinking of the constant struggle in some public libraries to put on programs that will be well attended by the community, I wonder if the discipline of creating a Hedgehog Concept and then sticking rigidly to a “stop doing” list would improve their situation.
Good to Great: Why Some Businesses Make the Leap … and Others Don’t by Jim Collins strikes me as a generally helpful book for library managers. While the room for adaptation makes it easily applicable to library situations, it also put a lot of the work of interpretation squarely on manager’s to figure out exactly what decisions would fit the principles in the book. Still, Collins numerous real world examples provide a range of successful applications that have taken companies from good to great.
Works Cited
Collins, Jim. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't. 2001. New York: Harper Collins.
Collins, Jim. Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great. 2005. New York: Harper Collins.
I read this book for a library management class, but I really ended up enjoying it. The points Collins makes are very useful, but it's not the end-all -be-all of management books
After years of exhaustive research, Collins' study was able to decipher a clear pattern of change identical in each of the good-to-great companies. The companies, as varied as Fannie Mae, Phillip Morris, Kimberly Clark, and Kroger, showed a history of at least ten years of average performance, followed by a clear transition point, after which the company outperformed the market by an average of at least three times over 15 years.
For every good to great company, the study also followed a comparison company in the same industry that performed similarly to the good to great company up to the transition point, after which the good to great company began its sharp upturn, while the comparison company remained stagnant. Six unsustained comparisons were also found in companies that began a good-to-great transition only to backslide back to average. When the comparisons and unsustained comparisons fail to follow Good to Great principles, Collins explains how the company's actions failed to follow the principles uncovered in the study.
What initially surprises me about Good to Great is how it immediately disregards the blind pursuit of profit as the only worthwhile goal of an excellent business. Instead, the good to great companies were truly focused on improving their company not specifically for the sake of making money, but instead to make themselves better at their core business. This instantly made me see how the book could be beneficial to libraries, which aren’t interested in making money, but do want to provide their patrons with the best service possible. Collins even acknowledges the wide applicability of Good to Great in Good to Great and the Social Sectors when he points out that the “critical distinction is not between business and social, but between great and good” (2).
While Good to Great and the Social Sectors makes the connection between Good to Great and non-profit organizations more explicit, the findings of Good to Great really are easily adaptable to social organization. While market performance is the metric for measuring success, that is the most strictly business oriented aspect of the book, and was not actually the strongest driving factor for good-to-great companies. Good-to-great companies instead discovered their own metric by which to measure success, closely tied to the unique role they identify for themselves to fill. Rather than focusing on the usual profit per store figure, Walgreens realized that they could be more successful if they measured success by profit per customer visit, which was more in line with their plan for expensive, but convenient store locations (Good to Great 104-8). While Walgreens still uses some measure of profit to quantify their success, it leaves the door open for non-profit organization to develop their own methods of measuring success.
While it’s nice that Good to Great can be so widely applicable, that may also be the book’s biggest fault. In order to make sense in a wide range of organizations, the principles of Good to Great have to be highly adaptive, making Collins’ numerous examples so varied that they sometimes seem rather convenient. When Kimberly Clarke made the gutsy decision to sell its numerous paper mills and devote itself solely to the risky consumer products industry or when Abbott decided move its focus from the potentially lucrative pharmaceutical industry to making affordable healthcare products, Collins explains how each of the Good to Great concepts contributed to the decision to make these shocking, but successful decisions.
However, when the comparison companies make equally drastic changes, they clearly are not operating within the Good to Great framework because their companies didn’t succeed. To be fair, Collins does explain which parts of each company’s plan works and which doesn’t, but it almost seems too neat and tidy that everything a company does right is because of Good to Great while everything wrong is not part of that framework.
One solution to this problem seems to be the concept of the flywheel (“The Fly Wheel and the Doom Loop”). While a company may implement some of the Good to Great concepts, if they don’t continually implement them, they will not achieve the stellar results. Just as one push after the other on a flywheel slowly builds up momentum until the wheel is spinning smoothly when a company begins implementing Good to Great principles, the same can happen when companies make bad decisions, propelling companies downwards rather than upwards.
While I am a little cynical about how clear-cut Collins’ results were, I generally agree with the Good to Great concepts. One point that I found particularly interesting was the chapter “Technology Accelerators,” which addressed our recent obsession on technology as a requirement of a successful business. The comparison companies blindly followed every new technological fad with no real sense of direction. On the other hand, the good-to-great companies were often pioneers in specific applications of technology directly related to their central purpose. The lesson: "Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure" (Good to Great, 156). If libraries, who often pride themselves on bringing technology to their patrons, can focus the role technology will play for them, they may be able to use their technology funds more efficiently.
The Hedgehog Concept has many applications for libraries. Good to Great explains the Hedgehog Concept as the intersection of the three questions: 1) What is your passion (in other words, what gets you excited)? 2) What can you be best in the world at (in other words, what are you uniquely skilled to do)? 3) What drives your economic engine (in other words, what will make you money) (Good to Great 94-110)? In Good to Great and the Social Sectors Collins modifies the third question slightly by asking “What drives your resource engine?” in other words, how do you ensure you receive the resources you need to continue doing what you’re doing (Social Sectors 18).
While libraries would love to be the one stop information source for everyone, realistically trying to fulfill that mission leaves everyone shortchanged. Assuming librarians have a passion for providing public access to information, that leaves libraries to figure out what role they’re uniquely situated to fulfill in their communities and how fulfilling that role can ensure they will continue to be funded. For example, a branch library in an immigrant neighborhood may realize that there’s a huge gap in ESL training. By helping their patrons learn English, they will be better able to participate in the political process and advocate continued library funding.
Once libraries have their Hedgehog Concepts in place, they can begin to ensure a culture of discipline, part of which involves making a “stop doing” list for all the activities staff devote time to that aren’t a part of your Hedgehog Concept. This is where you really begin to see how well crafted your Hedgehog Concept is. If you were too narrow, then your library can’t justify spending time on legitimate patron concerns, but if you’re too broad, staff are stretched too thin trying to be everything to everyone. Collins’ team found however, that if companies had already followed through on the earlier steps of the good-to-great transition (“Level 5 Leadership,” “First Who … Then What,” and “Confront the Brutal Facts”), then crafting an accurate Hedgehog Concept wasn’t a challenge (Good to Great 139-41). Thinking of the constant struggle in some public libraries to put on programs that will be well attended by the community, I wonder if the discipline of creating a Hedgehog Concept and then sticking rigidly to a “stop doing” list would improve their situation.
Good to Great: Why Some Businesses Make the Leap … and Others Don’t by Jim Collins strikes me as a generally helpful book for library managers. While the room for adaptation makes it easily applicable to library situations, it also put a lot of the work of interpretation squarely on manager’s to figure out exactly what decisions would fit the principles in the book. Still, Collins numerous real world examples provide a range of successful applications that have taken companies from good to great.
Works Cited
Collins, Jim. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't. 2001. New York: Harper Collins.
Collins, Jim. Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great. 2005. New York: Harper Collins.
I read this book for a library management class, but I really ended up enjoying it. The points Collins makes are very useful, but it's not the end-all -be-all of management books
jaredpence's review against another edition
3.0
It's still largely a "business book," which is my way of saying that it is making illogical assumptions when it transfers descriptions of businesses into generalized precepts that it recommends. Like any other self-help book, it looks for answers in individuals, individualism, and identity politics rather than acknowledging the unscientific nature of business and the systemic and contextual forces that create business success and failure. That said, I enjoyed the descriptions of what Collins categorizes as "great" companies (they had to be companies that beat general stock market growth for more than 15 years in a row) and thought the comparison company set-up was a smart way to show that it wasn't just a particular field or industry that was the primary instigator of success. I liked some of the precepts too, like confronting the brutal facts and that technology was never the reason for a company's success. I'm intrigued by the idea of "getting the right people on the bus," but it seems like a strategy that can only happen either by luck or already being a large, wealthy, successful enough company in the first place. What companies have the luxury of hiring the best people before they know what those people's jobs will be or what the company is even trying to accomplish?
vandalllj's review against another edition
3.0
One of the first books likely to be recommended in the business category. Enjoyable and well-researched.
meme_too2's review against another edition
5.0
I may not be in the business world, but I can still learn excellent leadership skills by reading this book. Each chapter focuses on an aspect of leadership. It's simply stated, several examples are offered, and then he offers steps that can be used right away.
Mr. Collins is a great communicator, teacher, and motivator.
Mr. Collins is a great communicator, teacher, and motivator.
headrook's review against another edition
5.0
For someone who is not particularly interested in the stuff of Wall Street companies, I found this book to be an impeccable read for the basic truths that can easily be applied on a personal level. In fact, the perfect pairing for this book is "Mindset" by Carol S. Dweck which has many overlapping themes and revelations yet aims it more toward the individual. Far from fluffy, inspirational self-help books "Good to Great" and "Mindset" are based on empirical data and well-researched anecdotes and interviews, yet can be applied toward changing your own way of thinking in order to succeed.
Don't get me wrong, "Good to Great" is definitely about 11 of the most successful "great" companies and is no wonder required reading for business majors. It may be dry in parts, put there are many diamonds of wisdom for people not so interested in the stuff of business. And, in fact, these are not the truths of budgets and finance, but core truths behind successful organizations. The only reason the author and his team of Stanford researchers focused on companies is that they have the most data available and distinct means to measure success. As the author states near the end, the lessons learned can be applied to other organizations, churches, and schools.
Don't get me wrong, "Good to Great" is definitely about 11 of the most successful "great" companies and is no wonder required reading for business majors. It may be dry in parts, put there are many diamonds of wisdom for people not so interested in the stuff of business. And, in fact, these are not the truths of budgets and finance, but core truths behind successful organizations. The only reason the author and his team of Stanford researchers focused on companies is that they have the most data available and distinct means to measure success. As the author states near the end, the lessons learned can be applied to other organizations, churches, and schools.
kimball_hansen's review against another edition
2.0
Almost three stars. I read the author's other book [b:Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies|4122|Built to Last Successful Habits of Visionary Companies|James C. Collins|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1412047084s/4122.jpg|147916] a few years ago. I really, really liked that book. This one is the prequel to that. I thought that was pretty neat to have a prequel of a non-fiction book. However, like many prequels, this one just wasn't up to par. It was nice to get a refresher on BHAGs, though. No BHAGs aren't your grandmother-in-law, they are Big Hairy Audacious Goals. The author was a little too over-zealous and passionate with this book (I listened to it on audio and could tell. speaking of audio, they would play music that reminded me of RBD's Ensename song). I suppose we can say this book was Good but Built to Last was Great. But, as with Built to Last, the author's team did do a really thorough, comprehensive job of finding companies to study that are Great. (For example, they weeded out those companies that rode the tech bubble and grew from technology rather than innovation itself. This is because technology cannot ignite a change from Good to Great. It can accelerate it but it can't be the spark.) This just didn't seem as clear cut of why the companies were Great. It seemed like the author was kinda beating around the bush. Some of the Great companies were Kroger, Walgreen's, Wells Fargo, and a few others who's names I didn't recognize at all.
I would like to read a revised edition of this book along with Built to Last. For example, Circuit City is one of the Greats. And as we know from 2008, they died. But the author did explain why it's OK if a company does poorly after they've placed them on the great pedestal (for example IBM).
I hope the author takes the themes of these two books and applies them to sports teams. I would love to learn why some are dynasties and others aren't. He would do a really good job because he's so thorough.
The Q/A at the end was a nice touch.
I'll just share some notes I jotted down:
People don't have the Great life because it's so easy to settle down with the Good life.
You don't need an outside leader to go from Good to Great. In fact, there is a negative correlation with a sustained transformation with outside leaders.
A level 5 leader is one who's first and foremost ambition for the cause, the company, the work. They have professional will and personal hurry.
The best people don't need to be managed.
Greatness is a function of conscious choices and discipline, not circumstances.
The great manage the systems, not the people.
"stop doing lists" and more important than "to do lists." I ought to try that one out. There's a whole of things I need to stop. But then it might become a paradox with the whole positive mindset and using the "stop" phrase.
I didn't quite get the hedgehog concept he talked a lot about.
Bad BHAGS are set with bravado. Good BHAGs are set with understanding.
It is much easier to become Great than remain Great. Greatness doesn't depend on size. It is no harder to build something Great than to build something Good. In fact it could be easier to build something Great. Resiliency is the signature of Greatness.
Teams should have their themes be "we run best at the end."
"The ultimate success in life is that your wife likes and respects you evermore as the years go by." Very true.
I would like to read a revised edition of this book along with Built to Last. For example, Circuit City is one of the Greats. And as we know from 2008, they died. But the author did explain why it's OK if a company does poorly after they've placed them on the great pedestal (for example IBM).
I hope the author takes the themes of these two books and applies them to sports teams. I would love to learn why some are dynasties and others aren't. He would do a really good job because he's so thorough.
The Q/A at the end was a nice touch.
I'll just share some notes I jotted down:
People don't have the Great life because it's so easy to settle down with the Good life.
You don't need an outside leader to go from Good to Great. In fact, there is a negative correlation with a sustained transformation with outside leaders.
A level 5 leader is one who's first and foremost ambition for the cause, the company, the work. They have professional will and personal hurry.
The best people don't need to be managed.
Greatness is a function of conscious choices and discipline, not circumstances.
The great manage the systems, not the people.
"stop doing lists" and more important than "to do lists." I ought to try that one out. There's a whole of things I need to stop. But then it might become a paradox with the whole positive mindset and using the "stop" phrase.
I didn't quite get the hedgehog concept he talked a lot about.
Bad BHAGS are set with bravado. Good BHAGs are set with understanding.
It is much easier to become Great than remain Great. Greatness doesn't depend on size. It is no harder to build something Great than to build something Good. In fact it could be easier to build something Great. Resiliency is the signature of Greatness.
Teams should have their themes be "we run best at the end."
"The ultimate success in life is that your wife likes and respects you evermore as the years go by." Very true.
thelibraryskeeper's review against another edition
2.0
Okay. Let me start this by saying my boss made me read this book. I do not enjoy this type of book nor would I choose it to read in my spare time. Moving on...
On a visual level this is a seriously ugly book. The charts and graphs and points are all shades of Grey and really detract from the overall reading experience.
That aside there are some good points in here that I think could help build a good work ethic and a good team. But YIKES. This guy did not go about his research in a way that my psychology brain enjoys. He did a a ton of interviews and questions AND THEN made a hypothesis. BIG YIKES. I don't trust any of his numbers or findings as a result. He used his data to make his points correct. It's just wrong.
I do like the ides of having passionate people being "the best in the world" at one thing or his whole hedgehog theory. However I do not find this realistic. If it was we would all quit our jobs and do what we love and be paid for it. Not eveyone has that luxury.
I am very confused as to how he reached all his conclusions based on seriously old ass research and stock market analysis. Either this book needs an update OR people need to STOP using it as a "Bible for business".
I am not looking forward to talking to my boss about this.... sigh....
On a visual level this is a seriously ugly book. The charts and graphs and points are all shades of Grey and really detract from the overall reading experience.
That aside there are some good points in here that I think could help build a good work ethic and a good team. But YIKES. This guy did not go about his research in a way that my psychology brain enjoys. He did a a ton of interviews and questions AND THEN made a hypothesis. BIG YIKES. I don't trust any of his numbers or findings as a result. He used his data to make his points correct. It's just wrong.
I do like the ides of having passionate people being "the best in the world" at one thing or his whole hedgehog theory. However I do not find this realistic. If it was we would all quit our jobs and do what we love and be paid for it. Not eveyone has that luxury.
I am very confused as to how he reached all his conclusions based on seriously old ass research and stock market analysis. Either this book needs an update OR people need to STOP using it as a "Bible for business".
I am not looking forward to talking to my boss about this.... sigh....
braddy7's review against another edition
4.0
Helped me think through my leadership and organization. The principle of getting the right people in the bus and the flywheel are my top take aways.