Rating: 
Summary: Tells You What To Do
Review: The reason this book is good because it not only tells you what works, it tells you what doesn't work as well. There's a site called the Not Yet Successful Entrepreneur Zone... that features stories of failed businesses. Reading these stories are useful because you can learn from others' mistakes.
Rating:
Summary: 10 stars
Review: Wow! I've been something of a connoisseur of business books for over 20 years going back to Drucker and Porter, but this is beyond a doubt one of the best I've ever encountered.
What distinguishes it first and foremost is the sheer rigor of the research that went into it. Many popular business books are long on ideas and supporting anecdotes, but short on clinical research. This one is firmly grounded in exhaustive study and real numbers. In fact, Collins mentions that a professional statistician who reviewed his methodology stated categorically that the likelihood of any of his key findings being purely coincidental was 1 in 1.7MM! Yet it doesn't read like a dry, clinical report at all. It's simply an extraordinarily lucid investigation of what allows a few companies to become great when so many of their peers remain just good. And frankly, I don't care how busy an executive is-from the CEO down-the only excuse for not reading this book is a latent fear that he or she may not have the goods to take a company to "great". Mr. Collins simply lays out a path too clear to be ignored that should guide the thinking of any business leader whether his or her company is large or small, not-for-profit or profit obsessed. It's a great book. (And the perfect gift for any Board member or senior Executive currently wrestling with how to turn in strong results and not run afoul of Sarbanes-Oxley.)
Rating:
Summary: Dynamic and Inspiring
Review: This book crystalizes concepts that are key to a company's success. A sure sign of intelligence is the degree to which someone agrees with you--Mr. Collins puts a name to concepts almost identical to concepts we have developed and put into practice since 1980. We called ours: Dynamic Intuition: Think People; Think Strategy and Think Virtual. Encompassed within our three are Mr. Collins 6 core concepts. We highly recommend Mr. Collins' book--as we have seen the concepts work in practice!
Rating: 
Summary: A easy-to-read business book
Review: The best thing about this book is: it is so simple to read and understand, and hence easy to remember. The concepts laid down are so simple, and yet sometimes surprising. Mr. Collins did not complicate the findings, and use very simple terms and stories to illustrate his findings. Since the results are driven from detail researches, it adds certain credibility to the overall framework. Ignoring the notes of the researches, the book only has +200 pages. This is a must read of even the most busiest executives.
Rating:
Summary: Mind over Matter
Review: In my search for seeking mastery in my life, my expectations about "Good to Great" were not fulfilled until I read the last page at the end of the book. The 'smoking gun back at my face' was how it converged so well with the comments given on the first page at the beginning of the book! Here it is:In our personal and professional lives, there are an abundance of activities that we, as individuals, can accomplish that go far beyond settling for just a good life. Preferably, a meaningful life can be spectacular, even under the worse set of conditions, as long as one has 'a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution' to life. FABULOUS! This book reflects the extensive and timely research done over the period of ten years. Luckily, I read this book first. It is the 'prequel' to "Built to Last," written earlier. Jim Collins did his best to gather and report his data in empirical form, but remember the precision of how the statistics were collected and determined. This is just a subjective test. A defensive football coach may know that the other team passes on the fourth down, only 2 yards to go for the goal line, 85% of the time, and may still lose the game against the same team every year. In my humble opinion (and please don't send me back to grade school), let's play in my sand box: 1) The book finally settled on 11 finalists that survived all the rigorous filters and tests. Does that mean that the rest of the companies, including Microsoft, failed? Hardly! What about all the companies that did not attract enough notice from the media and public scrutiny? On another note. Jim Collins has become part of the 'enlightened establishment.' Incredibly intelligent and talented people surround him. His dynamo wife is a truly phenomenal woman. Even Jim Collins admits 'she had the genetics!' BAM! That is your reality and what an excellent life (WooHOO)! What about the rest of us lower mortals? 2) It is unrealistic to get a 'partnership made in heaven' for the 'WHO, then WHAT' by getting the right people on the bus. Granted, matches like HP occur, and love at first sight is common. But, like marriages, most do not endure the test of time. However, consider expanding upon the analogy illustrated in the book. If the clean bus has a clearly marked sign indicated where it is going and even has a high-tech-electronically lit neon sign to flash alternate messages that indicate the street it is taking to get there (and the bus is marked with the name of the driver delicately stenciled next to the door along with a polished and attractive state-of-the-art coin machine to take and dispense the correct change), this is the strategy and vision of the bus driver (leader). The messages, signals and a few rules are clear to the person before jumping on the bus. This person can also get off the bus at the next stop. Only at this point is it prudent to select the right people to stay on the bus and to arrange them to sit at the right seat until the last stop to the beach for the sunset party. 3) It is unrealistic to recruit enough Level 5 leaders into positions of power. They are simply overlooked. The Board and investors who deliberately pick the 'Celebrity Hogs' rarely consider them. I truly wish we had more Abraham Lincoln's! 4) Technology should appear at the beginning of the entire process along with strategy. It must not be fully deployed because the needs are not completely known. However, it must be available at all times, at each process to accellerate the value of the company. This is an excellent book. It answers many difficult questions. It provides superb analytical thought and does a fantastic job reporting startling results. This is not a fad book. It should be required reading for all entrepreneurs who wish to shape the future and improve the quality of work in our lives.
Rating:
Summary: Good to Great
Review: Should it come as a surprise that a thorough research project, which set out to find the combination of elements that businesses use to become great, discovered that: (1) Great leaders maintain humility and will (2) Great companies seek to put the best people in the right places in their organizations (3) The best people are not afraid to face the "brutal facts" (4) Great strategic directions are established through understanding (5) Great organizational cultures are characterized by discipline and commitment, and (6) Great companies employ technology intelligently not hastily? I would think not, yet somehow, Jim Collins' work (and the work of his sizable team of researchers) reads like a series of remarkable revelations, which provide insight on the processes of organizational greatness. What is perhaps most amazing about this work (and it is amazing in many ways) is how Collins and his team created such a simple and readable book about an utterly complex subject.
Collins and his team set out to find what it takes to a make a great company. They measured greatness by a corporate performance. If a company's stock returns beat the general market by more three times over at least fifteen years after previously being at or below the market for at least fifteen years, it landed itself in the good to great category. Eleven companies made it onto the good to great list from the 1, 435 publicly traded companies that were initially evaluated. Once the eleven companies were identified, Collins' research team explored them and their comparison companies, those that could have made the jump to greatness but didn't, to discover what they did that others didn't. The book is a detailed explanation of the six elements of greatness and how they contribute to a calculus of change, growth and improvement. This book will not disappoint anyone interested in organizational culture, leadership or change. It is loaded with personal and organizational stories from the good to great companies. Nor will it trouble anyone interested in research as Collins and his team include detailed explanations and analyses of their methodologies throughout the book and in an epilogue and appendix section of more than fifty pages. The good great leaders were all "level 5" executives. They combined personal humility with resolve. Comparison company leaders, while skilled and sometimes brilliant, lacked one or both of these leadership qualities. In ten of the eleven good to great companies, the level 5 leaders were hired from within the company. They brought not only knowledge to their work, but a also fundamental passion for and love of the company and its goals. Good to great companies focused first on people and second on task. These companies sought to bring the best people to their quest. Often bringing in the right people meant not hiring the person with the most knowledge, but instead with the right combination of character traits. ("Good to great management teams consist of people who debate vigorously in search of the best answers, yet who unify behind decisions, regardless of parochial interests." p. 63) The great leaders displayed unfailing courage in collecting and understanding data. Not driven by ego or idealism, these leaders faced the facts and directed their companies accordingly. (In these companies a culture in which "people have a tremendous opportunity to be heard, and ultimately for the truth to be heard" was apparent.) (p.88) The good to great companies all embraced "the hedgehog concept": an understanding about what they were deeply passionate; clarity about how to measure their bottom line; and a shared vision for what they could do better than anyone else. On average, it took four years for these companies to get to the hedgehog concept. Great people put the long term interests of the company ahead of their own short term goals. They exhibited "disciplined action" and were fanatical about adhering to the hedgehog concept. "A culture of discipline is not just about action. It is about getting disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who then take disciplined action." (p.142) The people in the good to great companies responded to social and technological changes "with thoughtfulness and creativity" instead of being "motivated by fear of being left behind." (p.163) (Of the eighty-four interviews conducted with leaders in the good to great companies, 80% didn't mention technology at all as one of the top five factors in their transition to greatness.) Interestingly, the good to great companies spent little if any time working on culture, commitment, or alignment. In an environment where leadership and vision are strong, those processes largely take care of themselves. "Alignment principally follows from results and momentum, not the other way around." (p.187) This book will always have a special place on my book shelf. While it is fascinating and instructive on many levels, it has provided nourishment for my soul. What it tells us is that great organizations and people are fundamentally good. And, no less importantly, it reminds us of how important the right people are to an organization. I am comforted by the possibility that I and others I respect are not so replaceable after all.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful
Review: One of the most publicized business publications in recent history, this book lives up to the hype surrounding it. The principles presented by Mr. Collins and his team are not breathtakingly original by any means, but the exhaustive research which went into this book to define these principles creates a powerful argument for Mr. Collins' thesis. I was very impressed by the simple clarity and universal applicablity of these good-to-great principles, which people from all walks of life should find useful in improving the effectiveness of their organizations.
Rating:
Summary: What Makes a Company Great?
Review: Exactly what is it that makes one company stand out among others as a symbol of effective and efficient management? What factors are the most critical to long term success? Why do some companies seem to succeed so easily while others can barely keep their heads above water? In "Good to Great", author Jim Collins and his team of research specialists attempt to answer these and other questions about corporate management. These individuals conducted hundreds of interviews and gathered together thousands of statistics on corporations in all sorts of different industries in order to compile a list of companies that exemplify excellence in corporate management. The companies that are highlighted in this book earned their coveted rating based on their ability to outperform companies in similar industries after first undergoing a period of turmoil. The eleven "superstar" companies are: Abbott, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Kimberly Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Phillip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo. In each instance, these companies experienced a period of time where growth and financial prospects looked bleak. Then, they responded with expert planning and a sound managerial vision and came back stronger than ever before. Besides these 11 success stories, Collins also highlights some companies who failed to respond quickly enough to market changes and ended up in the trash heap of corporate history. An example here is the grocery chain A&P. This once successful company was reduced to nothing and eventually closed its doors for good because its management team refused to recognize the need to change and adapt to new market conditions and management changes. Had it responded more quickly and embraced change, A&P might still be among the largest U.S. companies. But its management failed to adapt, and it went bankrupt. This is a very good management book overall, and its data is backed up by concrete figures. What you get in this book are the cold hard facts, not merely the opinions of the author. Collins doesn't just ramble on about his own personal feelings on management and why he thinks one company is better than the others. He lets the track record speak for itself. Author Jim Collins and his team deserve a lot of credit for writing this insightful, well- researched book about corporate management. It would have been nice if he had expanded his writing to include more than just these 11 "superstar" companies. Still, "Good to Great" is one of the better management books that I have read in the past several years. It provides valuable insight into what works and what doesn't work in the world of corporate management.
Rating:
Summary: Better Than The Competition
Review: This book is better than the competition (which is what the book is about!), so it gets a little boost to keep it in the five-star rating. Generally a very good book, easy to read and comprehend, laid out well, with good documentation. One thing that bothered me was the (large) number of graphs of stock prices. Part of what bothered me was the number -- I get the point, already. Another part that bothered me was that the stock valuation does not always reflect well on the company, although this often is the case, especially during the time frame right before the book was released. However, my biggest gripe is that the prices were shown in a linear fashion rather than logarithmic. Most people will say "so what" because they are used to seeing linear prices. However, it hides experiences at other prices. For example, a 4x ramp-up at the end will look much more significant than a 20x ramp-up earlier. There is room for some argument about the two, but a logarithmic chart would have been much better. There is some great advice, er, research results. Just reading the summaries at the end of each chapter will enlighten the reader. One of the good things mentioned is that the company should worry less about "motivating" employees and worry more about "NOT DE-motivating" them. This follows well with my experience and the experiences of most good leaders that I know. An analogy of mine is the 100-yard dash. Most people who watch such a race will think that the winner really pulled ahead at the end. However, in reality, it was that the winner maintained the fast pace and the others fell behind. This is the same perspective that this book gives -- the conventional wisdom is often close enough to feel comfortable, but further analysis shows that conventional wisdom needs to be adjusted. This book is good at doing just that.
Rating:
Summary: Essential management reading
Review: I was required to read this book as part of the MBA program at Ivey. It turned out to be extremely useful, and well worth the read. This book has some unusual conclusions, such as:
CEOs of emerging great companies have an ego focused on the company rather than herself :-). They tirelessly look at ways to improve the company, and point to "the team" when success occurs. Other interesting findings include the Hedgehog principle:
1 What are you the best in the world at?
2 What are you passionate about?
3 What can we do to generate sustained revenue growth? Solving these three questions in unison leads to a very profitable market position, and a company that is great to work for. While this book reveals the secrets that make companies great, it might also help you in your career choices, in your rise in management, and in your 401K selections. Pretty good for one book!
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