Jim Collins

Can a good company become a great one and, if so, how?After a five-year research project, Collins concludes that good to great can and does happen. In this book, he uncovers the underlying variables that enable any type of organization to

Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't

Good to Great

The Challenge Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The Study For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great? The Standards Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The Comparisons The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't. The Findings The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include: Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap. “Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.” Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?

Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't

This one wasn't a good fit for me. I found it promising at the start, but it didn’t turn out to be highly relatable to the tech industry I'm part of. The key takeaways for me were:

Raúl Barroso Moreno

This one wasn't a good fit for me. I found it promising at the start, but it didn’t turn out to be highly relatable to the tech industry I'm part of. The key takeaways for me were:

Focus on surrounding yourself with the "right" people. Not everyone can succeed in any role or company, and making that decision is crucial for a company's success.

The importance of focusing equally on what to do and what not to do.

Christine Bower

That aged REALLY poorly, and was three times longer than it needed to be.

Fadi

هذا من الكتب الرائعة التي توضح لك بعيداً عن الدجل والوهم والخرافة كيف تنجح الشركات الكبرى وتتحول إلى شركات عظيمة
عبر 9 فصول مميزة يأخذنا الكاتب وفريقه البحثي ومن خلال دراسة معمقة لأكثر من 1453 شركة عالمية مشهورة وغير مشهورة ثم تصفية الرقم إلى 11 شركة عالمية تنطبق عليها المعايير الخاصة التي قررها مع فريقه البحثي ليعرف الأسباب التي حدت بالشركات كي تتحول إلى شركات عظيمة
من خلال 6 قواعد أساسية تتخللها 3 منظومات رئيسية وهي 
1- الأشخاص المنضبطون
2- الفكر المنضبط
3- التنفيذ المنضبط 
أما القواعد فهي:
1- مستوى القيادة 5
2- من أولاً ثم ماذا 
3- واجه الحقائق القاسية 
4- مفهوم القنفذ 
5- ثقافة الانضباط 
6- مسرّعات التكنولوجيا 
قد تظنّ أنّ الكتاب موجه للشركات فقط لكن لو أنعمتَ النظر في تفاصيل هذه القواعد لوجدتها تنطبق أيضاً على الأفراد أيضاً.
إذا كنت ملولاً ولا طاقة لك بقراءة الكتاب كلّه فأرجو منك قراءة الفصل الرابع فقط [ مفهوم القنفذ ] فهو من أجمل فصول الكتاب 

أعجبني في الكتاب أنّه جهد بحثي مشترك بين المؤلف ومعاونيه وقائم على الأسئلة المباشرة للشركات والحوار معهم وليس مجرّد سرد تاريخي لنجاحهم.
من العبارات التي أثرت بي قوله إنّ الناظر لنجاح الشركاات من الخارج يظنّ أنّ الأمر تم بضربة حظ أو تحوّل لحظي لكن الأمر من الداخل تمّ عبر سلسلة طويلة من التعب والتخطيط والبذل
فلا وجود لشيء اسمه "نجاح مفاجئ "
بل هو أقرب للوهم

يا إتش آرات العالم.. اقرؤوه

Fady Heshmat

Amazing research, I will recommend this book for every startups or businesses.

Chris Raastad

It's been a few years, but I know I really enjoyed this book. It's a case study figuring out what turns good companies great, diving into the details of what exactly caused that change. It's been a few years. Maybe not so much practical knowledge for non-CEOs of public companies, but still an interesting read.

Magdalene Lim

Interesting points that provided good food for thought. However, I question some examples (Fannie Mae lauded as a great company? We know what happened.) 

Also, how does one know that they are onto the right goal/strategy? Am pretty sure everyone who bravely went in the wrong direction, very strongly believed they were fearlessly striving for a breakthrough.

Adam

Why did Eckerd fail, when Walgreens took over? Collins explains the basics behind why some companies are able to make the leap to becoming great, while some are destined to fail.

Ilia Markov

To me, this is typical of 99% of business books — some obvious advice dressed as a framework and backed by research and examples from successful companies that make it sound scientific. It's interesting when you look at it a decade after it's been written because you see how some of the companies that are dubbed "great" in the book are not even around anymore or have gone through enormous changes.

Collins has a curious quote from Bill Packard (from Hewlett & Packard) who attributed the success of HP to the fact that the industry grew — and that might be the most sound and sincere observation in the whole book.

Good to Great Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't

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