Jim Collin Good to Great--Great Business Advice

Good to Great, written by Jim Collins is a journey into what makes a good company a great company.  Collins and his research team take a clinical look at 11 companies and their transition from good to great.  The research uses comparison companies that share similar products or services to demonstrate the sustainability, or lack there of.

In the next several post II will be highlighting key points from some of the chapters. They offer excellent advice for today's small and up-coming businesses. I will start with one of my favorites--Chapter 4 A Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)

  • Breakthrough results come about by a series of good decisions diligently executed and accumulated one on top of the other.
  • Good to Great companies don’t have a perfect track record.  They made many more good decisions than bad ones, and they made many more good decisions than the comparison companies.  More importantly, on the really big choices, they were remarkably on target.
  • The good-to-great companies displayed two distinctive forms of disciplined thought.
  • The first is that they infused the entire process with the brutal facts of reality
  •  The second is that they developed a simple, yet deeply insightful, frame of reference for all decisions.
  • You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts.  The good-to-great companies operated in accordance with this principle, and the comparison companies generally did not.
  • Strong, charismatic leaders can all too easily become the de facto reality driving a company.  
  • The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse.
  •  It is worthwhile to consider the idea that charisma can be as mach a liability as an asset.  Strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts.
  • Expanding energy motivating people is largely a waste of time.  If you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivated.  You have to manage in a way not to de-motivate your people.
  • Four ways to create a climate where the truth is heard:
  •  Lead with questions, not answers
  • Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion
  • Conduct autopsies, without blame
  • Build “red flag” mechanisms

Posted by LW and Associates at 6/29/2011 10:04 AM
Categories: Growth Strategies
Tags: jim collins good to great business advice business consulting lori williams lw and associates small business advice
 

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