JIM COLLINS “GOOD TO GREAT”

Jim Collins “Good To Great”



Jim Collins “Good To Great”

Introduction

This book, "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't" by Jim Collins. Collins and his team focused on eleven companies, selected among 1,435 companies, including well-known ones such as Circuit City, Wells Fargo, and Gillette that were able to renovate themselves and make the transition from 'good' to 'great.' All these eleven companies showed the following basic pattern: Fifteen-year cumulative stock returns at or below the general stock market "where you cannot just be lucky for fifteen years- punctuated by a transition point, then cumulative returns at least three times the market over the next fifteen years.

Analysis

Most of the business books are analyzing the past successes or failures of the companies. How did these companies succeed? Where did they make the mistakes? These are some of questions that the authors were trying to answer. Jim Collins' message is not solely for people who are in business sector, but also to those who can apply what they learnt from the book to their companies, social sector work, or at least to their own life.

The book consists of nine chapters that begin with "Good is the enemy of Great." In this first chapter, the author explains how he decided to work on such a huge project with a research team of twenty-one people. Outlines of the project and previews of the key findings are also described in Chapter 1. The process of transformation of the companies breaks down into three broad stages: disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. There are also two key concepts within each of these three stages (richard-wilson.blogspot.com).

In chapter 2, Jim Collins came up with a definition of Level 5 Leader "an individual who blends extreme personal humility ...