A review by davemmett
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't by Jim Collins

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].