GOOD TO GREAT BY JIM COLLINS

THIS BOOK DISPROVES MOST OF THE CURRENT MANAGEMENT HYPE --- FROM THE CULT OF THE SUPERHUMAN CEO TO THE CULT OF IT TO THE ACQUISITIONS AND MERGER MANIA. IT WILL NOT ENABLE MEDIOCRITY TO BECOME COMPETENCE. BUT IT SHOULD ENABLE COMPETENCE TO BECOME EXCELLENCE.

COLLINS's CURIOSITY FORCED HIM TO WRITE THIS BOOK. THIS BOOK IS THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION THAT HOW GOOD COMPANIES BECOME GREAT COMPANIES.

WRITE NOW I AM SHARING THE SUMMARY OF the 1st CHAPTER OF GOOD TO GREAT BUT I WILL SHARE THE SUMMARY OF EACH CHAPTER at-least thrice a week:

GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF GREAT
CHP# 1

IN THE FIRST CHAPTER JIM COLLIN SAYS," Good is the enemy of Great and this is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.
we don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools, we don't have great government, principally because we have good government. few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to sell for a good life. The vast majority of Companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quit good- and that is their main problem. "

IN THIS CHAPTER COLLIN SHARED THAT HOW HE WENT ON WITH HIS RESEARCH,
FIRST HE SEARCHED FOR THE COMPANIES WHICH WENT ON FROM GOOD TO GREAT AND THEN HE SEARCHED FOR THE COMPANIES WHICH WERE ALREADY GREAT SO THAT HE COULD COMPARE BOTH THE COMPANIES.

AFTER DOING SO COLLIN SAYS, "We took perhaps the most important step in the entire research effort: Contrasting the good to great companies, the crucial question in our study is not,'WHAT DID THE GOOD TO GREAT COMPANIES SHARE IN COMMON?' Rather the crucial question is,'WHAT DID THE GOOD TO GREAT COMPANIES SHARE IN COMMON THAT DISTINGUISHED THEM FROM THE COMPARISON COMPANIES?'

Think of it this way: Suppose you wanted to study what makes gold medal winners in the Olympic Games. If you only studied the gold medal winners by themselves, you'd find that they all had coaches . But if you looked at the athletes that made the Olympic team, but never won a medal, you'd find that they also had coaches! The key question is , What systematically distinguished gold medal winners from those who never won a medal?"

Collin introduced, transformation as the process of build up followed by breakthrough, broken into three broad stages: Disciplined people, Disciplined thought, and Disciplined Action. Within each of these three stages their are two key concepts:

Disciplined People :
(i) level 5 Leadership.
(ii) First who.. Then what.

Disciplined Thought :
(i) Confront the Brutal facts..
(ii) The Hedgehog Concept

Disciplined Action :
(i) Culture of Discipline...
(ii) Technology Accelerators...

Collin says while Describing the key points mentioned above :

Level 5 Leadership, " We were surprised, Shocked really, to discover the type of Leadership required for turning a good company into a great one. Compared to High-Profile Leaders with Big Personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good to great leaders seem to have come from Mars. Self effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy-- these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar."

First Who.. Then What, "We expected that good to great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. We found instead That they first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people, and the right people on their right seats-- and then they figured out where to drive it. The old adage 'people are your most important asset' turns out to be wrong, people are not your most important asset. The right people are."

Confront The Brutal Facts..(Yet Never Lose Faith)," We learned that a former prisoner of war had more to teach us about what it takes to find a part to greatness then most books on corporate strategy. Every good to great company embraced what we came to call Stock dale Paradox: you must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time Have the discipline to Confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity Within The Three Circles) "To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. Just because something is your core business--- just because you have been doing it for years or perhaps even decades-- does not necessarily mean that you can be the best in the World at it. And if you cannot be the best in the world at your core business, then your core business absolutely cannot form the basis of a great company. It must be replaced with a simple Concept that reflects deep understanding of three intersecting circles."

A Culture Of Discipline, All companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline . When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy, when you have disciplined thought, you don't need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don't need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.

Technology Accelerators, "Good-To-Great Companies think differently about the role of technology. They never use technology as the primary means of igniting a transformation. Yet, paradoxically, they are pioneers in the application of carefully selected technologies. We learned that technology by itself is never a primary, root cause of either greatness or decline."
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