Book Review: Good to Great

And so the beginning of my arduous adventure into tackling the plethera of books I received for my birthday. Thanks Mom and Dad Beron. I started with Jim Collin’s book entitles “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t” I’ve seen it on the shelves and hear a lot about it, being touted as a #1 best seller. Being that leadership and such has been a subject of study that interests me immensly, I decided to place this book on my list of, “Must Reads” This 300 page book (of which 100 pages includes an extensive appendix and notes) was a really good read. I’m no fortune 500 company owner, but I was intrigued to find that the principles which governed success for great companies are the principles that govern successful lives. Here are a couple of quotes:

• Few People attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.
• …the type of leadership required…self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy – these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
• You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit – Harry S. Truman
• Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce results.
• Level 5 leaders set up their successors for even greater success in the next generation, whereas egocentric Level 4 leaders often set up their successors for failure.
• The good-to-great leaders began the transformation by first getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.
• Concerning people decisions:

1. 1. When in doubt, don’t hire – keep looking.
   2. When you know you need to make a people chance, act.
   3. Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

• Charisma can be as much a liability as an asset, as the strength of your leadership personality can deter people from bringing you the brutal facts.
• Spending time and energy trying to “motivate” people is a waste of time…if you have the right people, they will be self-motivated.
• The transition (from good to great) begins not by trying to discipline the wrong people into the right behaviors, but by getting self-disciplined people on the bus in the first place.
• “Anything that does not fit out Hedgehog Concept, we will not do.”

In short, I feel that a lot of the principles that Covey brought to us in “7 Habits…” were wonderfully purported in this scientific analysis of what made companies leap and others not. I know that there were a lot of things I read that I am chewing on…things that I wonder would affect my ministry, my pool business, my life. It’s a fun read and it would be a great addition to your library of great leadership books. It’s also just a really great informational book with tons of history and revealing interviews.