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to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't Description
Welcome
to the Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't Description:
In
what Collins terms a prequel to the bestseller Built to Last he wrote with Jerry
Porras, this worthwhile effort explores the way good organizations can be turned
into ones that produce great, sustained results. To find the keys to greatness,
Collins's 21-person research team (at his management research firm) read and coded
6,000 articles, generated more than 2,000 pages of interview transcripts and created
384 megabytes of computer data in a five-year project. That Collins is able to
distill the findings into a cogent, well-argued and instructive guide is a testament
to his writing skills. After establishing a definition of a good-to-great transition
that involves a 10-year fallow period followed by 15 years of increased profits,
Collins's crew combed through every company that has made the Fortune 500 (approximately
1,400) and found 11 that met their criteria, including Walgreens, Kimberly Clark
and Circuit City. At the heart of the findings about these companies' stellar
successes is what Collins calls the Hedgehog Concept, a product or service that
leads a company to outshine all worldwide competitors, that drives a company's
economic engine and that a company is passionate about. While the companies that
achieved greatness were all in different industries, each engaged in versions
of Collins's strategies. While some of the overall findings are counterintuitive
(e.g., the most effective leaders are humble and strong-willed rather than outgoing),
many of Collins's perspectives on running a business are amazingly simple and
commonsense. This is not to suggest, however, that executives at all levels wouldn't
benefit from reading this book; after all, only 11 companies managed to figure
out how to change their B grade to an A on their own.
Buy Good to Great:
Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
