Good to Great CD: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't
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List Price: $39.95
Our Price: $21.69
Your Save: $ 18.26 ( 46% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: HarperAudio
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9780060794415
Format: Unabridged
ISBN: 0060794410
Label: HarperAudio
Number Of Items: 1
Publication Date: 2005-06-01
Publisher: HarperAudio
Release Date: 2005-06-14
Studio: HarperAudio
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Theory vs Reality
Comment: The research behind this book is impressive and the theories are engaging. On the whole, it's well written and it all makes good sense. Most of these firms have done well over time, while some have not (e.g., Fannie May, Circuit City). What Good to Great does not cover is the role of serendipity and changing market conditions. Nor does it focus on customers. You may want to check out Firms of Endearment for another perceptive.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Proven Principles of Success, for Big Companies, Small Start-Ups, and Even Families
Comment: Jim Collins' classic book on creating a great company contains success principles that apply to big corporations, small clubs, and even families.
* Level 5 Leadership (Leaders with humility and strength, but no ego)
* First Who, Then What (Get the right people first before deciding the direction)
* Confront the Brutal Facts (Create systems to face reality)
* Hedgehog Concept (Focus on One Big Thing that Unites Everything Else)
* Building Your Company's Vision (Focus on the Core Ideology and Envisioned Future)
There are so many profound truths in this simple, yet well-researched, book. Two insights that changed my life are those of "Level 5 Leadership," and "First Who, Then What."
We tend to get caught up in the charismatic, egotistical leaders that seem larger than life. Yet, these leaders' success often starts and ends with their involvement. Their legacies do not continue without them since everything depended on them. This was a big shift in the way I thought and acted. In the past, I was focused on doing everything my way. Now, I'm focused on scalable systems and replicable recipes that can grow my dreams, even without me. While you will always influence your company's culture, it is vital to create an organization that will always thrive, with or without you.
There's a saying in venture capital that we should bet on the jockey, not on the horse. All the best laid plans are doomed to failure without the proper people who can execute on them. Everything in our lives depends on our relationships and networks. We should build those first before we build the imaginary theories and plans. You must have a sense of the direction and the strategy BEFORE you go out and make your team, but your team ultimately matters even more than your plans. Your team decides how those dreams become reality.
Customer Rating:
Summary: For hiring managers, and those looking for leaders
Comment: Jim Collins and his team of researchers have surveyed over 1,400 companies, systematically analysed 6,000 publicly available articles, and carried out numerous face to face interviews with senior managers. The finding, the single most important factor to the health of a company - Leadership. The author asserted that they purposely steer away from such attribute as there are no shortage of business books paying the same platitude.
Every company vision statement reads like the next one. When did anyone last read a company which doesn't claim its employee is its greatest asset ? Yet, most see it fit to outsource its most critical function - finding the "right people". If every great company gets it right, there wouldn't be much of a recruitment industry. Recruitment agents will becomes redundant. It is the responsibility of every employee to find the right co-workers. Wait, isn't Google doing exactly that ? Jack Welch, John Chambers, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have all said their main job was to find the right people. Hire the right people first, then create a position to suit the person. Find passionate people, find people with integrity, find someone who would run the company like he/she owns it, hire this person straight away. This is how the author puts it,
"Widen your definition of "right people" to focus more on the character attributes of the person and less on specialised knowledge. People can learn skills and acquire knowledge, but they can not learn the essential characters traits that make them right for your organisation."
Since the publication of Good to Great it has attracted some criticism, primarily for its selection of what's on the Great company list. Much of the companies have since fallen on hard time, a few short years after its publication. Those views are some what misplaced. Good to Great doesn't give investment advice. It study the companies and the people that runs them, and dismissed a few myths along the way. Great leaders are often media shy, less worry about management "buy in" and much prefer hearing the truth, and definitely less charismatic than the media like to portray. A CEO should be working for the good of the company, and less about building his/her own personal profile. The big personality, the management superstar, the hyper arrogant (often misunderstood as self confidence) work against an environment in which employee are encouraged to take calculated risks, and find innovative solutions.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Good to Great" an exceptional leadership reference
Comment: "Good to Great" is an exceptional analytical review, focused on leadership, documenting the attributes of leaders of enduring great companies. The text effectively differentiates the leadership attributes of great companies from enduring great companies.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good look at what companies can do to manage talent
Comment: Stock findings aside, this book has good talent management strategies, including getting the right people on the bus and making sure everyone is going towards the same goal. Nothing revolutionary, but still helpful. I also found the monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great helpful in the non profit arena.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Theory vs Reality
Comment: The research behind this book is impressive and the theories are engaging. On the whole, it's well written and it all makes good sense. Most of these firms have done well over time, while some have not (e.g., Fannie May, Circuit City). What Good to Great does not cover is the role of serendipity and changing market conditions. Nor does it focus on customers. You may want to check out Firms of Endearment for another perceptive.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Proven Principles of Success, for Big Companies, Small Start-Ups, and Even Families
Comment: Jim Collins' classic book on creating a great company contains success principles that apply to big corporations, small clubs, and even families.
* Level 5 Leadership (Leaders with humility and strength, but no ego)
* First Who, Then What (Get the right people first before deciding the direction)
* Confront the Brutal Facts (Create systems to face reality)
* Hedgehog Concept (Focus on One Big Thing that Unites Everything Else)
* Building Your Company's Vision (Focus on the Core Ideology and Envisioned Future)
There are so many profound truths in this simple, yet well-researched, book. Two insights that changed my life are those of "Level 5 Leadership," and "First Who, Then What."
We tend to get caught up in the charismatic, egotistical leaders that seem larger than life. Yet, these leaders' success often starts and ends with their involvement. Their legacies do not continue without them since everything depended on them. This was a big shift in the way I thought and acted. In the past, I was focused on doing everything my way. Now, I'm focused on scalable systems and replicable recipes that can grow my dreams, even without me. While you will always influence your company's culture, it is vital to create an organization that will always thrive, with or without you.
There's a saying in venture capital that we should bet on the jockey, not on the horse. All the best laid plans are doomed to failure without the proper people who can execute on them. Everything in our lives depends on our relationships and networks. We should build those first before we build the imaginary theories and plans. You must have a sense of the direction and the strategy BEFORE you go out and make your team, but your team ultimately matters even more than your plans. Your team decides how those dreams become reality.
Customer Rating:
Summary: For hiring managers, and those looking for leaders
Comment: Jim Collins and his team of researchers have surveyed over 1,400 companies, systematically analysed 6,000 publicly available articles, and carried out numerous face to face interviews with senior managers. The finding, the single most important factor to the health of a company - Leadership. The author asserted that they purposely steer away from such attribute as there are no shortage of business books paying the same platitude.
Every company vision statement reads like the next one. When did anyone last read a company which doesn't claim its employee is its greatest asset ? Yet, most see it fit to outsource its most critical function - finding the "right people". If every great company gets it right, there wouldn't be much of a recruitment industry. Recruitment agents will becomes redundant. It is the responsibility of every employee to find the right co-workers. Wait, isn't Google doing exactly that ? Jack Welch, John Chambers, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have all said their main job was to find the right people. Hire the right people first, then create a position to suit the person. Find passionate people, find people with integrity, find someone who would run the company like he/she owns it, hire this person straight away. This is how the author puts it,
"Widen your definition of "right people" to focus more on the character attributes of the person and less on specialised knowledge. People can learn skills and acquire knowledge, but they can not learn the essential characters traits that make them right for your organisation."
Since the publication of Good to Great it has attracted some criticism, primarily for its selection of what's on the Great company list. Much of the companies have since fallen on hard time, a few short years after its publication. Those views are some what misplaced. Good to Great doesn't give investment advice. It study the companies and the people that runs them, and dismissed a few myths along the way. Great leaders are often media shy, less worry about management "buy in" and much prefer hearing the truth, and definitely less charismatic than the media like to portray. A CEO should be working for the good of the company, and less about building his/her own personal profile. The big personality, the management superstar, the hyper arrogant (often misunderstood as self confidence) work against an environment in which employee are encouraged to take calculated risks, and find innovative solutions.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Good to Great" an exceptional leadership reference
Comment: "Good to Great" is an exceptional analytical review, focused on leadership, documenting the attributes of leaders of enduring great companies. The text effectively differentiates the leadership attributes of great companies from enduring great companies.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good look at what companies can do to manage talent
Comment: Stock findings aside, this book has good talent management strategies, including getting the right people on the bus and making sure everyone is going towards the same goal. Nothing revolutionary, but still helpful. I also found the monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great helpful in the non profit arena.
Built To Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning. But what about companies that are not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? Are there those that convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? If so, what are the distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great? Over five years, Jim Collins and his research team have analyzed the histories of 28 companies, discovering why some companies make the leap and others don't. The findings include: - Level 5 Leadership: A surprising style, required for greatness.
- The Hedgehog Concept: Finding your three circles, to transcend the curse of competence.
- A Culture of Discipline: The alchemy of great results.
- Technology Accelerators: How good-to-great companies think differently about technology.
- The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Why those who do frequent restructuring fail to make the leap.
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