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Summary of Good to Great 

4.5 . 6219 reviews

Short summary

Good to Great carefully chronicles the trajectory of the success of some companies. A great company usually performs better financially than the market average over time. Although making a good company great might be very difficult, Jim Collins proves that it can be achieved with excellent leadership, efficient technology, and practical goals. Jim Collins is an American speaker, author, researcher, and consultant. He worked with the tech company Hewlett-Packard for 18 months before founding a management research laboratory in Colorado in 1995. Stanford Graduate School of Business awarded him a distinguished teaching award in 1992, and Forbes recognized him as one of the 100 greatest living business minds in 2017. “The good-to-great companies did not focus principally on what to do to become great; they focused equally on what not to do and what to stop doing.” ~ Jim Collins

Table of content

  • Summary of Good to Great
  • About the author
  • What is Good to Great about?
  • Who should read Good to Great
  • Topics in Good to Great
first key point

Mediocrity has robbed many of the zeal to lead an extraordinary life

Listen the first key point
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One thing that limits us is the idea that good is acceptable. We have good schools, so creating great schools seems like a needless quest to chase luxury. Unfortunately, the same is true in our daily lives — we give credence to the norm while beholding greatness as a lifestyle exclusive to a few people.
Very few businesses and companies ever climb the echelon of high-performing status.
We are so used to mediocrity that businesses have found it difficult to sustain a high-flying state for very long. As a result, many companies have fallen down the pecking order, as they have found it impossible to reach their potential. Although various factors could have brought about this negative trend, the fact remains that we have shrouded our thirst for success with the convenience of attaining the second best. However, a handful of corporations have broken free from this narrative over the years. They are what Jim Collins calls the good-to-great companies. This tidbit summarizes a five-year study on the distinguishing factors of truly great companies by a team of curious individuals spearheaded by Jim Collins. The team analyzed publicly traded companies and considered their stock data from 1985 to 2000. They only chose companies that had undergone a transition point and generated a cumulative return not lower than three times the market through 15 years. Therefore, this eliminates the luck factor, as no company would have ridden on luck to produce high-performing stats for that long.

In the end, the team found 11 companies that embodied good-to-great patterns. Their success stories had little or no correlation to the demise or boom of their respective industries. A closer look revealed similar concepts across all the good-to-great companies that contradicted the prevailing business principles that we all have come to herald as the templates for building great companies.

In this summary, you will learn how good companies transit to become great companies. Also, you will gain hands-on knowledge on how to get the right people to work with you to ensure your company’s success.
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. ~ Herman Melville
second key point

The leadership trait of executives in good-to-great companies is finding self-motivated people to join their team

The companies under the spotlight in Jim Collins’ study performed remarkably well in the 15 years under review. Some even outperformed well-established companies, like Pepsi and Walt Disney. In fact, many of them rose from the brink of obscurity to the summit of their industry. Yet, surprisingly enough, the individuals who had championed this unprecedented growth — people who steered the ship toward greatness and led with determination in the face of endless challenges — had not featured in tabloids as much as the so-called celebrity CEOs.
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third key point

Building a great company leads to an extraordinary life because you get to spend your time with people you love

fourth key point

The good-to-great companies are those that dared to confront a brutal fact

fifth key point

Self-discipline and not tyrannical order drive business growth

sixth key point

You must endure the buildup before you experience the breakthrough

seventh key point

Conclusion

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What is Good to Great about?

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Do you find yourself staring at your computer for long minutes, unaware of time slipping by? Do you enter a room and suddenly cannot remember why you stepped in the first place? Is it a herculean task for you to sit through ten pages of a book without reaching for your phone? If yes, your focus needs some work and fast.

Actually, yours is not a unique situation. Many adults like you have issues concentrating on a given task. However, in this fast-paced world of ours, you can’t afford to be not focused at all times. Thankfully, this article comes to your rescue! With the tips and tricks from Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey, you will get in the top percent of folks who have mastered the art of concentration.