Good to Great

By Jim Collins

Here, is an overview of the framework of concepts in the book. Think of the transformation as a process of buildup followed by breakthrough, broken into three broad stages, disciplined people, discipline thought, and discipline action. Wrapping around this entire framework is a concept that called flywheel, which capture the gestalt of the entire process of going from good to great.

Level 5 Leadership

Compared to high profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good to great leader seem to have come from Mars. Self effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy- these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar

First Who… Then What…

The good-to-great leaders did not begin by setting vision and strategy. They first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats-and then they figured out where to drive it. The old adage “People are your most important asset” turns out to be wrong. People are not the most important asset. The right people are.

Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)

Every good-to-great company embraced that called the Stockdale Paradox: You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of you current reality, whatever they might be.

The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles)

To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. Just because something is you core business- just because you have been doing it for years or perhaps even decades- does not necessarily mean you can be the best in the world at. And if you cannot be the best at the world at your core business, then your core business absolutely cannot form a great company. It must be replaced with a simple concept that reflects deep understanding of three intersecting circles.

A Culture of Discipline

All companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline. When you have discipline people you don’t need hierarchy. When you have discipline thought, you don’t need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.

Technology Accelerators

Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology. They never use technology as the primary means of igniting transformation. Yet, paradoxically, they are pioneers in the application of carefully selected technologies.

The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

Those who launch revolutions, dramatic change programs, and wrenching restructuring will almost certainly fail to make leap from good to great. No matter how dramatic the end result, the good-to-great transformations never happened in one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary luck break, and no miracle moment. Rather, the process resembled relentlessly pushing a giant heavy flywheel in one direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.

These are the findings of Good to Great companies which can implement in every area of management strategy and practice.

“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, who can afford to ignore these findings??