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Books : Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't |
List Price: $29.99Amazon.com's Price: $19.79 You Save: $10.20 (34%)Prices subject to change.
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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
Studio: Collins Business
Sales Rank: 101
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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 Review:
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
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Jim Collins and his team of researchers have surveyed over 1,400 companies, systematically analysed 6,000 publicly available articles, and carried out numerous face to face interviews with senior managers. The finding, the single most important factor to the health of a company - Leadership. The author asserted that they purposely steer away from such attribute as there are no shortage of business books paying the same platitude.
Every company vision statement reads like the next one. ... Read More
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"Good to Great" is an exceptional analytical review, focused on leadership, documenting the attributes of leaders of enduring great companies. The text effectively differentiates the leadership attributes of great companies from enduring great companies.
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Stock findings aside, this book has good talent management strategies, including getting the right people on the bus and making sure everyone is going towards the same goal. Nothing revolutionary, but still helpful. I also found the monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great helpful in the non profit arena.
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This book is easy and interesting reading. Not only is it required text for my class, but the Vice President of the company that I work for actually told me to read it. Imagine her surprise when I informed her that it was required reading for my masters in social work class.
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Great practical ideas. How refreshing it is to see a passionate individual pursue an idea to completion and take the time to fully investigate all possibilities.
It's been a great addition to my book club at work.
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