Good to Great

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Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
Front cover
Author	James C. Collins
Language	English
Publisher	William Collins
Publication date	October 16, 2001
Media type	hardcover
Pages	320
ISBN	978-0-06-662099-2

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't is a management book by James C. Collins that aims to describe how companies transition from being average companies to great companies and how companies can fail to make the transition. "Greatness" is defined as financial performance several multiples better than the market average over a sustained period of time. Collins finds the main factor for achieving the transition to be a narrow focusing of the company’s resources on their field of competence.

Contents 1 Seven Characteristics of Companies that went from Good to Great 2 Great Companies 3 See also 4 References 5 Reviews 6 External links

[edit] Seven Characteristics of Companies that went from Good to Great

• Level 5 Leadership: Leaders who are humble, but driven to do what's best for the company.
• First Who, Then Where: Get the right people on the bus, then figure out where to go. Finding the right people and trying them out in different positions.
• Confront the Brutal Facts: The Stockdale paradox - Confront the brutal truth of the situation, yet at the same time, never give up hope.
• Hedgehog Concept: Three overlapping circles: What makes you money? What could you be best in the world at? and What lights your fire?
• Culture of Discipline: Rinsing the cottage cheese.
• Technology Accelerators: Using technology to accelerate growth, within the three circles of the hedgehog concept.
• The Flywheel: The additive effect of many small initiatives; they act on each other like compound interest.

[edit] Great Companies

Collins finds eleven examples of "great companies":

• Abbott Laboratories
• Circuit City
• Fannie Mae
• Gillette
• Kimberly-Clark
• Kroger
• Nucor
• Philip Morris
• Pitney Bowes
• Walgreens
• Wells Fargo

[edit] See also

• Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
• The Halo Effect
• In Search of Excellence

[edit] References

• Collins, Jim (2001). Good to Great. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-662099-6. 

[edit] Reviews

• Why Good to Great Isn't Very Good.(This Review was done by a competing author.)

• Good to Great video review.

[edit] External links

• JimCollins.com
• Wiki Chapter Summaries of Good to Great
• From Good to Great … to Below Average Article on Freakonomics New York Times blog