Blog Exchange

Good to Great is an awesome book (highly) recommened it for those interested in starting a new business.
Based on research done by a team lead by the author.

Studied numerous successful and unsuccessfully businesses in an effort to determine while some companies succeeded while others don’t.Book mainly provides this output to the reader to help gain insight on the type of things that make a company successful.
 
Predecessor to an earlier book ‘Built to Last’ that discusses how great companies stay great

Key Concepts:

These concepts are based on a ‘flywheel’ mentality, that each of the concepts is one step closer to a ‘spin-off’ of successes, each building and complementing the other.

Good is he Enemy of Great:  Discovered that the Great Companies always strived to achieve to be the best, and were not satisfied with a ‘good enough’ mentality. Never satisfied with the status quo but concerned with what else could be done to stand-out.
 Level 5 Leadership.  Trying to avoid the concept that all problems were related to poor leadership the group discovered they could not quite do this. In fact they identified a 5 Level system from component worker, effective team member, competent manager, effective leader, ‘Level 5 Leader’. Identifying a character tic that companied personal will and personal humility in a ‘ironic’ mix that lead to successes.

 Characteristics of a Level 5 leader include looking outward for success and looking inward for responsibility, as well as putting the needs of the company ahead of there own personal needs or desires.
First Who Then What.  It was observed that in the most successfully companies, the leaders worked first and foremost to get the right people in the right seats, and then determine where they were headed (what the vision was). In the comparison companies, the vision was usually established first, and the people in the seats may be there due to seniority, or family members etc, and not necessarily due an effective combination of skills and experience.
 Confront the brutal facts, and never loose faith. It was observed that successfully companies were able to opening recognize and deal with the problems within the company, knowing that tenacity and perseverance would pay off and lead to eventual successes. The comparison companies would have a blame mentality or it’s the markets fault etc and often would not recognize or correct internal problems quick enough until they already went way out of hand.
 The Hedgehog Concept. This is the observation that the successful companies were able to establish vision and strategies by taking complex ideas and breaking them down into simple concepts that could be used to guide any/all decisions.  The trick was not about setting complex strategies and new concepts, as much as unifying existing concepts in a smaller, easier to understand pieces. This piece addressed such questions as what are you deeply passionate about, what can you be the best in the world at, and what drives your economic engine (economic denominator)
 A culture of Discipline: The concept here is to design systems both with strictness and flexibility, to balance creativity with structure in a disciplined way and to make this way a part of the existing culture. Discipline here must not be confused with Tyranny. This idea encompasses change while still staying within the 3 circles of the defined hedgehog concept

Technology Acceleratos. Possibly a special case of the culture of discipline, here it was observed that lasting companies used technology as a fuel to accelerate the already existing hedgehog concept. Often this would not necessary mean being the first to market, to jump on the bandwagon of a new emerging technology. Instead, of looking to technology as a savour or means to end it was simply adapted to the existing concept of the great company to endure its greatness. Often the comparison companies used an emerging technology to Gail short term success but without the disciplined hedgehog concept could not endure lasting successes.

The Flywheel and the Doom Loop
 The Flywheel analogy is an observation that the great companies build to be great in incremental steps from the inside, which may appear to have evolved overnight from the outside. Each step adds on to a previous action with continuous effort and diligence towards and within the

Read More...