Good to great : why some companies make the leap ... and others don't / Jim Collins.

By:

Collins, James C. (James Charles), 1958-

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Professional development collectionPublication details: New York, NY : HarperBusiness, 2001.Edition: 1st edDescription: xii, 300 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9780066620992
0066620996

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

658 COL

Contents:

Good is the enemy of great -- Level 5 leadership -- First who... then what -- Confront the brutal facts (yet never lose faith) -- The hedgehog concept (simplicity within the three circles) -- A culture of discipline -- Technology accelerators -- The flywheel and the doom loop -- From good to great to built to last -- Epilogue: Frequently asked questions.

Summary: Built to Last showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't. The findings of the Good to Great study include: the research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness; to go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence; when you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results; good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology; and those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Standard Loan	LSAD Library Main Collection	658 COL (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		39002100666370
Standard Loan	Thurles Library Main Collection	658 COL (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		R13073KRCT

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Challenge

Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.

But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

The Study

For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

The Standards

Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

The Comparisons

The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?

Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't.

The Findings

The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:

Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

"Some of the key concepts discerned in the study," comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people."

Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-286) and index.

Built to Last showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't. The findings of the Good to Great study include: the research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness; to go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence; when you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results; good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology; and those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

Acknowledgments (p. ix)
Preface (p. xiii)
1 Good Is the Enemy of Great (p. 1)
2 Level 5 Leadership (p. 17)
3 First Who ... Then What (p. 41)
4 Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith) (p. 65)
5 The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles) (p. 90)
6 A Culture of Discipline (p. 120)
7 Technology Accelerators (p. 144)
8 The Flywheel and the Doom Loop (p. 164)
9 From Good to Great to Built to Last (p. 188)
Epilogue: Frequently Asked Questions (p. 211)
Research Appendices (p. 219)
Notes (p. 261)
Index (p. 287)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Jim Collins holds B.S. and M.B.A. degrees from Stanford University. A visiting professor of business administration at Stanford Graduate School of Business, he is a management consultant. He has written several articles for the Harvard Business Review, Inc., Fortune magazine, California Management Review and Stanford Magazine.

He is the co-author of Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies; Managing the Small to Mid-Sized Firm: Readings, Cases and Instructor's Manual; Beyond Entrepreneurship; and Great by Choice. He has also worked with Hewlett Packard and McKinsey & Co.

(Bowker Author Biography)