Good to Great

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

  • 3.72 ·
  • 18 Ratings
  • 208 Want to read
  • 12 Currently reading
  • 21 Have read
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  • 3.72 ·
  • 18 Ratings
  • 208 Want to read
  • 12 Currently reading
  • 21 Have read

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Last edited by ImportBot
August 12, 2010 | History

Good to Great

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

  • 3.72 ·
  • 18 Ratings
  • 208 Want to read
  • 12 Currently reading
  • 21 Have read

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?

Publish Date
Publisher
Collins
Language
English
Pages
320

Buy this book

Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Good to Great
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
2001, HarperBusiness
Hardcover in English - 1st Ed.
Cover of: Good to Great
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
October 16, 2001, Collins
Hardcover in English
Cover of: Good to Great
Good to Great
2001, Random House Buisness Books
Hardcover
Cover of: Good to Great
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't
October 16, 2001, HarperAudio
Audio cassette in English - Abridged edition

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Book Details


First Sentence

"Good is the enemy of great."

The Physical Object

Format
Hardcover
Number of pages
320
Dimensions
9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
Weight
1.2 pounds

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL9248220M
ISBN 10
0066620996
ISBN 13
9780066620992
Library Thing
27245
Goodreads
76865

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History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
July 28, 2014 Edited by ImportBot import new book
April 6, 2014 Edited by ImportBot Added IA ID.
August 12, 2010 Edited by IdentifierBot added LibraryThing ID
April 24, 2010 Edited by Open Library Bot Fixed duplicate goodreads IDs.
April 30, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from amazon.com record.