Good to Great Book Summary

[Jim C. Collins]
 SUMMARY
One of the bestsellers “Good to Great” was written by Jim C. Collins and was published on 16th
of November 2001. This is a non-fiction corporate strategy-based book which sold more than 4
million copies to date. The author and his team have done a remarkable research to find out
“How to make a good company, a great company”. Journey of becoming great from good is not
an easy task. The book focuses on being great than just being good, many of the people or
organizations even do not want to work for being great. Their non-striving behavior opens gates
for the new competitors. Pursing for the great and best means there is no vacancy for midrange
living or working. It is no more different than our practical lives as some of us are living a very
lavish life while others are just living a good life only because they feel it is okay as we are
living. Jim C Collins (the author) viewing these aspects formulated some strategies and phases
by which every company goes through during Good to Great journey.

There are three basic components of the structure:

Processing: Building yourselves up for the journey of greatness and setting up the inflections
points (breakthrough) to achieve the desired goals.

Phases: Journey of “Good to Great” consists three different phases.

Involving right team with right leader for the journey means it requires disciplined people and
disciplined thoughts. So, they can have clear understanding towards the facts and figures. Third
phase is disciplined actions, where right team has the required freedom to work for achievement
of desired goals.

Flywheel: It is the smooth and deliberate process of finding out best actions to be done for the
excellent results in future then rolling the flywheel step by step in appropriate direction of
actions to achieve the desired targeted goals.

According to the research most leaders were no greater than ordinary persons who brought major
transformation in their lifestyle with the help of ‘Good to Great’. Most of them were shy, calm,
and deliberate, all they had was professional will and humility. The author (Jim C Collins) has
described 5 levels of leadership which can make a good company a great company. All these
phases are summarized below.

The author of the book states that great leaders are those leaders which are concerned with
success of organization more than their own personal riches. Such leaders can be shy, but they
are highly oriented towards the completion of their job in perfect way. Success of their
companies matters most for them, so they continuously plan for succession. They are not selfish
type personalities; they rarely discuss their achievements or success. They are even more
motivated in sharing credit of their success with leaders of other companies which are self-
obsessed. If there is no one to share credit with, Level 5 leaders give their credit to luck. They are

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highly responsible personalities which even take responsibility in failures. These personalities
are totally different from the leaders of failed organizations.

The dedicated team is required to the achieve the desired goals on the journey towards greatness
so, it is very much important to choose the right team before even knowing the path of greatness
hence ‘’First who… then what”. Assembling team of right people is the first priority then all the
strategies and visions are decided to make a company great. The author focused on choosing
right people because people usually join eagerly first but when company changes its direction,
people just lose their focus and motivation. So, the right team and with dedicated people will
always work for making company great regardless of the path company is following. ‘getting
right people on the bus and getting wrong people off the bus’s this phrase is used by Jim C
Collins which is really important in these phases. Motive is not to burden those who are
achieving for those who are not achieving.

The strategy which is mostly followed by the companies is “genius with thousand assistants”
where only that genius person decides the vision and strategy of the company and the hired staff
helps him to accomplish his vision. Jim C. Collins has not supported this model for making the
company great because when that single genius person leaves that can result in collapsing all
strategies and visions so, it is not very sustainable model. Do not hire people when you are in
doubt and do not put your best people on biggest problems but on biggest opportunities.

After selection of appropriate and dedicated teams, then comes the factor of good decisions. To
make good decisions it is necessary to face all the brutal facts first. There should be a climate in
company where only truth should be entertained. Company should follow the culture of “being
heard of” rather than “having your say”. Because “being heard of” is the culture which gives the
chance of facing brutal facts properly through own people and helps in making sensible
decisions.

The main strategic dissimilarity between Good and Great Companies is the awareness of “The
Hedgehog Concept”. Good companies often fail to deeply understand three main dimensions of
“The Hedgehog Concept” and Great companies always use this model in every part of their
decisions. The Hedgehog Concept’s three main dimensions are listed below which help the
companies to have deep understanding of themselves.

 What can you be the best in the world at?

It is very essential for the companies to understand the above questions from The Hedgehog
Concept so, they can understand what they are good at and can do that in best mean. The main
reason to do that is to find the expertise of company through that company can perform
remarkably around the globe.

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If a company is doing something since beginning but it is not working, then it should look for
another expertise. To solve this puzzle and for understanding the economic engine driver of the
company it is essential to know about the ‘economic denominator’. Raise a question to yourself,
if ever in your life, you have picked a something that would have huge impact, then what it
would be? This question will surely help you to understand which one is the better decision for
your company and will give you a chance to look after the economics of organization.

Now it is time for the disciplined actions, company should develop the self-disciplined culture
for making proper actions under Hedgehog concept structure. It requires the team which is
strongly willing to work under the structure of that concept with dedicated freedom. Another
major part of this strategy is saying to NO to all irrelevant opportunities which do not fit under
The Hedgehog concept and only welcoming the opportunities which are the most suitable for the
company.

The technological factor plays a vital role in future growth of the businesses but following the
technologies which are new but no relevant to business can cause damage to the growth of
company. It would be best to choose the most relevant latest technologies which can really boost
the momentum of company or business to maximum level. The great companies always take the
start from the technologies which fit best under the Hedgehog framework. Great companies are
not attracted to fads of latest technologies they put their maximum time in thinking which
technology will be most appropriate and right for their business’s growth. Good to Great
evolution is not concerned with the initializing of newest technologies of time but rather it is
dependent on the initializing with most suitable and applicable technology for the company and
business. Choosing of right technology builds the trust and removes the fear of being down dated
in case of any technological revolutions because choice has been made through deep thoughts
and strong analysis. Companies become highly motivated as they become sure that their deep
mindful thoughts will surely lead them to desired success even in technological revolution.

Conclusively, the deep research of Jim C. Collins in shape of this book showed that
transformation from Good to Great does not just happen eventually or fortunately. Strong
dedication towards breakthrough plan points is required with continuous application of all
discussed phases. Jim C. Collins book showed the clear image of the great companies who
became great with hard work and dedication towards core tenets, processes of building,
acceleration in momentum continuously as turning a flywheel and finally reaching to desired
goals of achievement. “Good is the enemy of great” Jim C Collins has tried his best to give us
the clear understanding that things are not great because things are good, and no one is working
for making them great. He has exampled government, schools and organizations are not great
because they are good. It is easier to settle for good life, people are happy in being good only, but
strong dedication and planning is required for greatness.

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