| |  | Author: James C. Collins
Publisher: Harperbusiness
Category: Book
Buy New: $37.67
New (3) Used (4) from $26.26
Rating:  716 reviews
Sales Rank: 438129
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
ISBN: 0066621003
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9780066621005
ASIN: 0066621003
Publication Date: September 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New, great condition
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| Customer Reviews:
 Pretty great, if a little dated December 16, 2008
I picked up this book from the bed and breakfast bookshelf while on vacation. It's not a book I normally would have chosen to read on vacation, but it was well written and was surprisingly engaging for the topic. It's a study of companies that were good companies for awhile (at least 15 years), then became great companies (outperforming the stock market by at least 3x over at least 15 years). What they found in the eleven companies that met the criteria were some interesting and at times counterintuitive tendencies.
LEADERSHIP All the companies had what Collins calls "Level 5 leaders," or leaders with a rare combination of drive and ambition but a complete lack of ego. These leaders are humble, quick to credit others, and are driven by a desire to create something bigger than themselves as opposed to a monument to themselves. These leaders shun the cult of personality and are very rarely rock-star CEOs. In fact, Collins found no correlation between CEO pay and good-to-great companies.
WHO OVER WHAT Good-to-great companies first concern themselves with who they bring on board before decide what needs to be done. The right team can accomplish anything, but even the best game plan will fail if it doesn't have the right people to implement it.
CONFRONT THE BRUTAL FACTS The g2g companies had a culture of optimistic realism. They had a culture of trust and honesty, where people were empowered to do their jobs and debate was encouraged. Goals were set high, but they never lost sight of the situation on the ground.
THE HEDGEHOG CONCEPT refers to a parable in which a hedgehog constantly foils a fox by repeatedly doing the same simple thing--being a hedgehog. In business, it simply means finding your company's core competency. What can it be best in the world at? What can it make money at? What is it passionate about? Great companies find and stick to that one thing.
GOOD TO GREAT also describes the culture of discipline in each company, the adaption to new technology, and the cycles of positive and negative momentum that companies find themselves in. All of these elements work together to create the leap to greatness over time. It's not a singular breakthrough.
Scattered throughout the book are great case studies, inspirational stories and insightful quotes. My biggest criticism of the book, or observation, is that a couple of the eleven great companies (Fannie Mae and Circuit City) either forgot what made them great or weren't as sustainable as Collins thought seven years ago. That aside, this was an easy read full of a lot of good insight.
Captivating for a Business Study December 15, 2008
Very good research and well written. Somewhat dated since 3 of these companies are in trouble today, but the others are still among the best.
 Timely principles needed during this economic crisis December 15, 2008
Jim Collins' study of business core values, principles and success concepts was expected to be timeless, even if the companies in the book were not. This is never more true than in the later half of 2008 where we see time after time companies missing the mark on these concepts and faltering badly.
I suggest that Congress, the auto makers, unions and especially Wall Street read carefully, no study the concepts in Good to Great. Had Fannie Mae continued the principles it displayed in this study, the housing crisis could have had a leader in future prosperity rather than a goat in the middle of the mess.
Take the time to study these principles of business carefully and not only follow them, live them. Jim Collins has created a book that is more than good to great, its Built to Last!
My review December 7, 2008
Good to great is a book that is created from the evidence produced by rigorous study. Using statistics and feedback, it attempts to identify common denominators in behaviors that separate great companies from good companies. The studies were not conducted with any preconceived prejudices, in that they did not have a particular vision of what the answers would be. The people who conducted the study simply applied the scientific method to the statistics and observed the evidence, and based off of that, conclusions were made.
Collins himself was shocked by the results. To quote page five, "Our five-year quest yielded many insights, a number of them surprising and quite contrary to conventional wisdom, but one giant conclusion stands above the others: We believe that almost any organization can substantially improve its stature and preface, perhaps become great, if it conscientiously applies the framework of ideas we uncovered." The information revealed was interesting, and Jim Collins became the author of Good to Great when he decided to analyze these studies in a self-help book designed for people who are looking to improve their business performance. It is very applied because business is supposed to be about application, not theory, and very useful. Collins did not write this book to show off his cognitive abilities, but to provide a beneficial experience to the reader.
- Daryl Basarab
Just good December 7, 2008
Jim Collins begins this book with a startling and counterintuitive claim: "Good is the enemy of great." We've become so conditioned to think of performance as something that develops along evolutionary lines -- from poor to good to outstanding -- that it takes a minute to grasp the notion that competence can actually inhibit achievement. As Collins says, "The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good -- and that is their main problem."
Based on an extensive five-year study conducted by Collins and a research team he affectionately refers to as "the Chimps," Good to Great defines and analyzes the practices that allowed 11 companies to make the rare transition from solid to outstanding performance. One of the first surprises of the book is the list of companies Collins focuses on: Circuit City, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo haven't been touted as top performers in that way that GE or Coca-Cola, for instance, have. Nonetheless, the companies chosen have all met the rigorous criteria that Collins developed to measure the good-to-great transition. Some of the other revelations in the book concern the lack of correlation between executive compensation and corporate performance; the fact that technology did not in itself engender corporate transformation; and the scant attention that these upward-trending companies paid to such issues as managing change or motivating people.
Collins's philosophy is summed up in one noteworthy phrase from the book -- "Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice."
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