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by: Jim Collins
List Price: $27.50Amazon.com's Price: $16.50 You Save: $11.00 (40%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9780066620992
ISBN: 0066620996
Label: Collins Business
Manufacturer: Collins Business
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 300
Publication Date: 2001-10
Publisher: Collins Business
Release Date: October 16, 2001
Sales Rank: 32
Studio: Collins Business
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
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?
Amazon.com's Best of 2001:
Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, 'Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?' In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. --Harry C. Edwards
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Successful Business Practices
This book has generated so many successful business practices among my client base that who can genuinely put it down? As a companion to my own book, "The Expert's Edge," it completes the picture for business success. Read it over and over and over!
Rating:  - GREAT together
I ordered Good to Great along with Amazon's recommended pairing Squawk!: How to Stop Making Noise and Start Getting Results and they are a great match!
First, Good to Great provides a macro level view of what strategies various companies have employed over the last few decades and speculates a link between these strategies and the company's stock performance. As a leader, this book is helpful to consider your own strategies for your organization against some of the best companies in ... Read More
Rating: - My Personal Number 1 Management Book
A few years ago, the company I was with purchased copies of Good to Great for managers. I was blown away by the information the book contained. The book went against my thinking at the time. In quick order, I changed my mind-set about several topics and found my `new ways' were more productive to my employer and my career.
Perplexed, I wondered why the executive management of the organization didn't practice the theories advanced in this book. They were after all, the ones that had ... Read More
Rating: - It was Great
The book arrived much sooner than expected and in great shape. Very pleased with the service and product.
Rating: - Challenge to be Passionate
Working in Church leadership, I found Mr. Miller and team's work challenging and appealing. What seems obvious in being great is actually the antithesis of 'conistent greatness'. I would recommend this book for any organization. A+ for those of us in ministry!
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