Built to Last was a phenomenal success: 'It is a fair assumption that as the seminal importance of this book begins to permeate the upper echelons of business and business schools...Collins and Porras will emerge as the gurus to watch over the next decade.' The Director. Good to Great explores a whole new concept, backed by the rigorous research standards which gave Built to Last such an impact. 1. Good is the Enemy of Great -- the scope of the project; 2. Level 5 Leadership -- the type of leader required, humble and ferocious; 3. First Who...Then What -- how companies set the foundation for their shift from good to great; 4. Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith) -- the duality that leads to greatness; 5. Hedgehog Concept -- how to find the one big thing your company must focus on; 6. A Culture of Discipline -- the magical alchemy of great performance; 7. Technology Accelerators -- technology is a trap, unless used right; 8. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop -- how to build sustained momentum and avoid the 'new regime, new revolution' doom loop; 9. From Good to Great to Built to Last -- how to take a company from great to enduring great. Appendices: Good to Great in: the New Economy; non-Profits; Government; Investors; outside the US. Plus four research appendices.

Table of Contents

Good is the enemy of great; level 5 leadership; first who - then what; confront the brutal facts (yet never lose faith); hedgehog concept; a culture of discipline; technology accelerators; the flywheel and the doom loop; from good to great to built to last.

About the Author

Jim Collins left the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1995 to set up a management laboratory in Colarado. He has worked with senior executives and CEOs from over 100 corporations including Starbucks Coffee, Time Warner, Johnson & Johnson and E-loan.com. He is co-author of the best-selling Built to Last - which has been on the Business Week bestseller list for 57 months, sold 500,000 copies in the US alone and has been translated into 17 languages.

Reviews

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. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.