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Good to Great, Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don't (精装)
by Jim Collins
| Category:
Management, Leadership, Business, Corporate excellence |
| Market price: ¥ 280.00
MSL price:
¥ 238.00
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A profound and powerful book that is destined to be a timeless management classic. One of the Top Ten business reads recommended by MSL. |
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AllReviews |
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David Rouse, USA
<2006-12-19 00:00>
Collins is coauthor of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (1994), the widely heralded book that was the result of a six-year research project conducted by Collins and Jerry Porras. They identified 18 companies that met their rigorous standard for long-term performance. They looked for companies that had outperformed the stock market by a factor of 15 starting from 1926. Then they went about the task of identifying what these companies had in common. Now Collins turns his attention to companies that have made the transition from "good to great." This time the findings are backed by five years of research and data analysis. Starting with every company that ever appeared in the Fortune 500, Collins identifies 11 companies that had 15-year cumulative stock returns at or below the general stock market when, after a transition point, they then demonstrated cumulative returns of at least three times the market over the next 15 years. Collins then looked for similarities among the companies. What he found would both surprise and fascinate anyone involved in management. |
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Peter F. Drucker, USA
<2006-12-19 00:00>
This carefully researched and well-written book disapproves most of the current management hype – from the cult of the superhuman CEO to the cult of IT to the acquisitions and merger mania. It will not enable mediocrity to become competence. But it should enable competence to become excellence. |
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Jason Greer, USA
<2006-12-19 00:00>
Jim Collins groundbreaking leadership book, Good to Great, Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't attempts to answer the question of how an organization can be led to resounding success and to the achievement of all its goals. The author's premise is that being simply good enough is acceptable to most individuals and that organizations need determined and focused leadership to grow into a great organization that maximizes all the potential that its members can muster. Good to Great was the result of a five year study into what makes effective leadership and organizations.
Within this book, Collins attempts to profile exactly what type of leaders lead the transformation from a merely good to a great organization. In the process, he dismisses some common fallacies and assumptions about what is needed to advance an organization to a great organization. While Collins mostly uses case studies of large American businesses, he proposes that the principles he has studied can be used by any organization; government, school or church.
Collins strongly advocates that the central element to move an organization forward is not delineating goals or policies, but discovering individuals with talent who can lead an organization from all levels. The common assumption that an inspiring leader who takes an organization further is charismatic and is able to make sudden changes to push an organization are shown by his research to not be consistent with the profile of great leaders. Most great leaders, showing what he calls Level 5 Leadership, are humble, quiet, disciplined, placing the organization above their own personal egos, and have a relentless search for outstanding subordinate leaders.
Great leadership requires passion and discipline that are constantly looking to improve today and to slowly move towards the future. No one charged in an organization's turnaround can look for a quick fix, or some other event that lacks real substance. Tools, like technology, are never solutions; but are simply products that aid the discipline process.
Collins found that all great leaders make a habit of properly ascertaining intelligence about their present situation and are able to make calm decisions based on the brutal truth. He case that great leaders operate on the "hedgehog concept", or that concepts must constantly be refined to their simplest, nominalist objective is consistent with his concepts of disciplined, humble leadership.
Collins' concepts encourage a constant push towards quality discipleship and initiative. Humility and kindness at the top of the leadership will go a long way towards encouraging subordinate leaders to show the same traits to others. While rigor and exacting details in leadership are always required, ruthlessness and throwing the weight of leadership around to assert authority never are.
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Chad Oberholtzer, USA
<2006-12-19 00:00>
I don't have a bone in my body that is inclined toward business. I was a high school chemistry teacher and now work for my church. So, I didn't read this book to learn about business. I read it to learn about leadership. And what a great choice it was.
I was surprised that my first foray into the world of business books was so utterly readable. Though I didn't understand every single point, Collins manages to write in a very digestible way, while maintaining sufficient intellectual rigor. I was absolutely fascinated by many of the observations that he made in light of his group's research and admired the fact that they clearly avoided the temptation to work the data to produce an intended result. Instead, they allowed the research to drive the conclusions, which makes the take-home messages that much more legitimate.
What I loved about the book is that its applications seem to be almost universal. Though there are clearly realities that separate the smallest minutiae from everyday application in my worlds of education and church work, I am confident that I will be able to use this book to shape the way that I lead. I hope to continue to develop toward Level 5 leadership, and I will endeavor to lead my church to confront the brutal facts (which many people don't like to do in the church) and identify our Hedgehog Concept (which many people also don't like to do in the church).
I am glad that Collins labored through this research project, as the potential benefits pervade all sectors of society. I look forward to reading his follow-up monograph to see how he distinguishes these findings for non-profit organizations. In any case, I would recommend "Good to Great" to any leader in the corporate world or social sector. There is much to be learned from his work.
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An American reader, USA
<2006-12-19 00:00>
How can companies move up to great results and sustain them (6.9X general stock market) for at least 15 years? How are these companies different from those that failed to make the leap? (Most analyses attempt to determine the commonalities within the top performers - eg. "In Search of Excellence"; Collins' approach is potentially more valuable.) Some of the findings are as follows:
1)Ten of the eleven good to great CEOs came from inside the company; comparison companies tried outside CEOs 6X more often. (Jack Welch, of G.E. was one such transformational insider.)
2)Structuring executive compensation to encourage "right" behavior was NOT important to success; it is more important to simply get and keep the right people.
3)Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) played virtually no role in igniting a transformation. In fact, successful and sustained transformations never happened out of any grand program, killer innovation or step - instead, it was a long process.
4)The good-to-great companies paid scant explicit attention to managing change and/or motivating people. Instead, they first focused on getting the right people on, and the wrong people off. (Suggested Hiring Rule: When in doubt, don't hire.)
Collins also asserts that strategy was not a key component of success - that unsuccessful firms spent about the same amount of time on this topic as the successful. Collins' observation about time spent may be true, but my review of the evidence presented is that 9 of the 11 began their upward progress after a significant CHANGE in strategy (the other two subsequently have fallen from grace). Collins does, however, suggest "keeping it simple," using technology to serve the firm's focus (not as a cure-all or fad), confronting reality, and setting big goals - all consistent with "In Search of Excellence" and Jack Welch's approach.
Successful strategy-setting also requires determining, in my opinion, whether one is going to be primarily in the business of offering innovative products (e.g. Gillette's new razors), or commodities (e.g. Nucor's reinforcing steel). The former requires a primary emphasis on speed of innovation and keeping very close to the customer), the latter on cost reduction. Too often firms do not make this distinction and simply muddle forward. |
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Roy Clouburst, USA
<2006-12-19 00:00>
Jim Collins and a highly motivated group of 20 graduate students deliver one of the best explanations yet for why some companies make the leap from good to great. The interviews, man hours, and exceptional synthesis in this work are second to none.
Collins introduces the concept of the Level 5 leader - which in his study is the first and most important ingredient for a company to achieve greatness. Interestingly, these leaders are described as having a high degree of humility - and an inclination for sacrificing their personal needs for what is best for the company.
We also learn about the concept of facing the "brutal facts." In an impressive anecdote, Collins speaks of his interview with Admiral Stockdale - the senior ranking POW in Vietnam. Stockdale contends that his acceptance of his situation, i.e. "facing the brutal facts" were pivotal to his survival in captivity.
Collins and his team succeed marvelously in producing a practical guide for both private and public enterprises. The lessons learned in this work would be valuable to any CEO or business leader, or to those in the nascent stages of developing a business. A great read and important contribution to business scholarship, Good to Great lives up to its name. |
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Kanishka Shinha, India
<2006-12-19 00:00>
This is a truly amazing book. Our company was considered to be the top dog in the country for around 50 years. Then suddenly it went through the worst period in its history and in the space of a few years its share price fell to a half. When we were trying to turn it around copies of this book were distributed to all the managers and it seemed profoundly relevant at that moment in our history. A number of processes/changes were put in place that seemed almost lifted from the contents of this book and our share price has increased by some 100% in the last 9 months.
The main point that differentiates if from many other management books is that it is a result of serious time spent in research. Which companies that had been doing nothing spectacular for at least 15 years suddenly went supersonic and continued at this pace for more than 15 years while competition (in the same industry) stayed the same and what was the common factor that the companies who turned around had and that the companies who didn't... didn't. The level of analysis (and in particular quantitative analysis) makes it more credible to me than many 'apple pie statement' books. It's actually a how to book.
The major points are:
1. People who are satisfied with being good will never become great and so the biggest obstacle to being great is paradoxically being 'good enough'
2. Leadership matters but again paradoxically the best returns are not from the most famous charismatic leaders from outside brought in to revitalise a decaying company. The best performance comes from home grown managers who are humble and fiercely committed and probably believe in the company's own value systems
3. The turnaround does not happen by figuring out what to do and then getting the right people in the right positions. It's getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and only then sitting down and figuring out what needs to be done.
4. The great companies had a tradition of being brutally honest about bad situations (rather than rah rah cultures) but confident that it would EVENTUALLY work out (and not necessarily any time soon). This is called the Stockdale paradox after an army fellow called Stockdale who was tortured some 20 times over 8 years but maintained his sanity. He said he never lost his hope that one day he would get free but the people who died were the most optimistic, the ones who thought they would be free the next day or the day after and so they had to keep dealing with their own disappointments and ultimately they died of a broken heart.
5. The companies followed the hedgehog concept (the hedgehog has just one defense and doesn't try anything else but it does that one thing - roll up into a ball of spikes - better than anyone else). They had to do what they were passionate about, what they could be best at and they focused on one key metric.
6. They had a culture of discipline in which rules, bureaucracy and hierarchy were not required. These rules (for the minority problem employees) actually resulted in other places with the good employees getting frustrated and leaving.
7. The great companies didn't use technology better, they just used it to enable their existing processes better.
8. There was no one moment or one initiative that was the key. The employees and leaders just kept on plugging away and after a while they gained momentum and then the acceleration just kept getting faster and faster.
Great lessons! |
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J. Robinson, Canada
<2006-12-19 00:00>
The primary thrust of the book is to present an analysis of winning US companies and how they achieved that status. Do they have anything in common? Can we learn something from their success? Most of the conclusions and comments are simple and convincing. The author helps us to focus on the goals and methods of maintaining and or growing a healthy business. The ideas even pertain to a small business or a government agency.
I like the sports analogy in the book. In the Olympics as in life and business you have a broad variety of performers. The athletes for example are all different - even in the same Olympic event.
The top athletes that go to the Olympics all have talent and they have good coaches. But only one person in that pyramid of athletes sits at the top at the end of the day with the Gold Medal. Usually there is more than just raw talent involved. It is a long process to reach that Gold medal and the athlete must have many other things. The winner has at a minimum the discipline and the passion or love of the sport to spend a lot of time preparing and honing their abilities. Plus he or she must have more than just a desire to compete but a clear and engrained desire to win. Together these are all key ingredients to make a winner.
The book is very well researched and uses a group of bright and energetic college age researchers to help the author assemble and debate the facts - the performance of well known public companies over a long span of time. The facts are precise - they are financial performance versus peers - something that can be determined with precision. The winners are determined in this performance analysis of sales and earnings growth and stock prices. In some ways it is easy to measure these financial parameters and compare companies. It is harder to answer the question why (?) this company.
As noted by other reviewers one must read the book carefully.
Just like a glass of wine, the written book reviews do not do it justice and cannot completely convey the message.
Read the book. If you are in business it is the type of book that you will keep within easy reach and look at from time to time.
The book has a number of surprises (for myself) that shoot holes in the myth of the super duper CEO. He has a number of other good ideas about performance, team building, developing products, market selection, management, delegation, building companies, case studies, etc. One might disagree with some points but overall this is simply a great book and it is easy to see why it is a long-term best seller.
A must buy and 5 stars. |
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Peter Valentine, USA
<2006-12-19 00:00>
Jim Collins is a former faculty member of the Stanford University of Business where he received the Distinguished Teacher Award. He wondered why some companies achieved greatness while most never came close. In this book he offers seven defining differences between average companies and those that exceeded the stock market by 300% or more over a period of 15 years. This five year intensive study yielded conclusions both expected and non-intuitive.
Companies that went from 'Good to Great' were led by self-effacing, modest CEOs that had a fierce drive for results. They were quick to give others credit while taking any blame upon themselves. They were anything but flashy.
Good to Great (G-G) companies hired the best in the field so little training, motivation and command/control were necessary. The 'right' people were their most important asset. These hired executives actually earned a little less than average showing that compensation was not a driving factor.
G-G companies confronted the brutal facts of reality as opportunities for change. They created a corporate atmosphere that made it easy for any employee to deliver the sometimes harsh but needed truths.
G-G companies were single-minded and constant in their purpose and vision. Anything that didn't further their vision was axed. This included all decisions including acquisitions and mergers.
G-G companies maintained a culture of discipline and accountability that started at the top. They realized that discipline could not be pounded into someone, it had to come from the inside.
G-G companies used the existing technologies only to the extent that they aided their single-minded purpose. They were not technology driven and didn't look for the 'magic bullet' in it.
G-G companies maintained a slow, steady build-up of momentum in the direction of their vision and core concepts. They didn't jump haphazardly at every opportunity to temporarily build the bottom line.
It is interesting that some of the companies listed in this book have not done so well since the book has been written, but it doesn't make its information any less valuable. It is quite possible that these companies lost their edge in the above areas. |
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Lightman, USA
<2006-12-19 00:00>
Good to Great is a very interesting exploration of corporate evolution. Jim Collins set out to attempt to understand the process of transformation that causes some companies to transition to much higher levels of performance than they have historically evidenced, and to sustain a level of results that significantly outperforms both comparative companies and the market in general.
The author and his research team were rigorous in setting aside preconceived notions of the variables that might account for such cases of radical change. The only characteristics they looked for to identify the subject companies were seemingly sudden performance breakthroughs that were sustained for at least fifteen years. These organizations were compared to each other as well as to a set of comparison companies (those with significant shared characteristics with the exception of performance breakthrough).
The high performance variables that were identified by the study were those that good to great companies had in common with one another, but not with the group of comparison companies.
The characteristics that set these companies apart are not at all what one might have anticipated, and therein lies much of the interest of the research.
How might the book itself have transitioned to greatness? I wish Collins would have included more analysis as to how the factors he identified resulted in the documented performance breakthroughs. This would have provided the reader with more content for application and in so doing would have moved Good to Great from very good to great. |
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