Good+to+Great+Overview


 * Good to Great by Jim Collins**

Jim Collins and his team researched eleven companies that went from being good companies to great companies. A company was defined as a good-to-great company if it had a fifteen-year cumulative stock return at or below the general stock market, a transition point, then cumulative returns at least three times the market over the next fifteen years. The good-to-great companies were compared to two sets of comparison companies. The direct comparison companies were companies that were in the same industry with the same opportunities but showed no leap from good to great. The second set of companies were companies that made a short term shift from good to great but were unable to sustain their success.

After 10 years of studying the data from their research this is what they __**did not**__ find in the good-to-great companies:
 * The leaders were not larger-than-life celebrity leaders that came from outside the company. Most leaders came from inside the company.
 * There were no specific links to executive compensation.
 * The companies did not spend more time on long-range strategic planning.
 * They did not just focus on what to do; they focused equally on what not to do or stop doing.
 * Technology did not cause the transformation.
 * Mergers and acquisitions did not play a role.
 * The good-to-great companies paid little attention to managing change, motivating people, or creating alignment.
 * There was no grand event or program to signify their transformation.
 * The companies were not in great industries that were ready to take off.

Collins and his team found that the type of leadership needed to take a company from good to great is what he calls Level 5 leadership. Level 5 leaders:
 * build an enduring culture of discipline. They hire self-disciplined people who don't need to be managed, and then they manage the system, not the people.
 * portray humility. They are ambitious for the company, not themselves.
 * are fanatically driven to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great.
 * create a culture wherein people have a tremendous opportunity to be heard and ultimately for the truth to be heard. They face the brutal facts.
 * are like hedgehogs. They know "one big thing" and stick to it. They understand what their organization can be the best in the world at, and what it cannot be the best at.
 * attribute success to others but blame themselves for failures and take full responsibility.