Overview: Good to Great was inspired by Bill Meehan's observation that Collins’ previous work Built to Last was not very helpful because it only studied companies that were already great. Jim Collins calls Good to Great a prequel to his bestseller Built to Last. Collins’ definition of a “Good to Great” company is one that includes 10 years of average performance followed by 15 years of performance superior to the market average. He and his team of 21 researchers then sifted through a list of 1,435 past and present Fortune 500 companies to find the ones that matched these stringent criteria. They ended up with 11 companies that qualified: Abbott, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo.

- Leaders of great companies turned out to be mostly quiet and humble, but determined to be successful. A company must have a series of these leaders to become and stay great.
- They get the weak employees off board and get the excellent employees on board and into the position that suits them best. Then focus on a strategic direction and corporate goals.
-They establish a corporate culture of discipline based on commitments, with freedom on how to accomplish those goals.
- They use technology to support progress, not lead it, and only when it fits the goals of the company.
- They build momentum from consistent efforts behind its concept that are reinforced by success.
- The company needs a concept of what it truly believes in and wants to accomplish. In many of the studied companies, the growth came only after years of trying to mold a concept into what they truly believed in.
- Most great CEOs are promoted from inside the company, and are not recruited from the outside.- A company must be passionate about its goals.
- It is best to find one measure of profitability. If you could maximize profitability per x, find the x that would have the best long-term impact on the company and focus on improving the ratio.
- Successful leaders must confront reality, but never lose hope, and directly address the issues. The transformation from good to great is a gradual transition, and is not powered by one major improvement, but many incremental improvements.
- The goals of a company must fit into all three of the following categories: What can the company do the best in the world? What is the company passionate about? What will allow the company to profit? The company’s strategy should be based on something that fits into all three questions.

Reviews

This carefully researched and well-written book disproves most of the current management hype from the cult of the superhuman CEO to the cult of the IT to the acquisitions and merger mania. It will not enable the mediocrity to be become competence. Bit it should enable competence to become execellence."
        -- Petter F. Drucker

The Second Coming of Age: Liberty and Justice by Curtiss De Vedrine