Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't

by Jim Collins

If you

create a place where the best people always have a seat on the bus, they’re more likely to su...

each core member of the team transformed personal ambition into ambition for the company.

Level 5 executive team member does not blindly acquiesce to authority and is a strong

leader in her own right, so driven and talented that she builds her arena into one of the very best in the world.

“they were always in search of the best answer. In the end, everybody stood behind the decision. All of the debates were for the common good of the company, not your own interests.”

Their experiences went beyond just mutual respect (which they certainly had), to lasting comradeship.

good-to-great companies clearly loved what they did, largely because they loved who they did it with.

“who” questions come before “what” decisions—before vision, before strategy, before organization structure, before tactics.

When in doubt, don’t hire—keep looking.

When you know you need to make a people change, act.

First be sure you don’t simply have someone in the wrong seat.)

Put your best people on your biggest ...

Good-to-great management teams consist of people who debate vigorously in search of the best answers, yet who unify behind decisions, regardless of parochial interests.

The purpose of compensation is not to “motivate” the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get and keep the right people in the first place.

Whether someone is the “right person” has more to do with character traits and innate capabilities than with specific knowledge, background, or skills.

better-attuned companies

Yet one of these two companies confronted the brutal facts of reality head-on and completely changed its entire system in response; the other stuck its head in the sand.

They didn’t like the answers that it gave, so they closed it.

A&P then began a pattern of lurching from one strategy to another, always looking for a single-stroke solution to its problems.

We also learned that you had to be number one or number two in each market, or you had to exit.

breakthrough results come about by

a series of good decisions, diligently executed and accumulated one on top of another.

The good-to-great companies displayed two distinctive forms of disciplined thought. The first, and the topic of this chapter, is that they infused the entire process with the brutal facts of reality. (The second, which we will discuss in the next chapter, is that they developed a simple, yet deeply insightful, frame of reference for all decisions.)

you start with an honest and diligent effort to determine the truth of the situation, the right decisions often become self-evident.

You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts.

Ash turned a blind eye to any reality inconsistent with his own vision of the world.

But, unlike the comparison companies, the good-to-great companies continually refined the path to greatness with the brutal facts of reality.

“This is a culture that is very hostile to complacency,”

people were much more worried about the scary squiggly things than about the feelings of top management.

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.

less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more c...

charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of

problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.

Statistical Office, with the principal function of feeding him—continuously updated and completely unfiltered—the most brutal facts of reality.

repeatedly asking for facts, just the facts.

“How do you motivate people with brutal facts? Doesn’t motivation flow chiefly from a compelling vision?” The answer, surprisingly, is, “No.” Not because vision is unimportant, but because expending energy trying to motivate people is largely a waste of time.

you will not need to spend time and energy “motivating” people. If you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivated.

How do you manage in such a way as not to de-motivate people?

Yes, leadership is about vision. But leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts confronted.

“have your say” and the opportunity to be heard.

people had a tremendous opportunity to be heard and, ultimately, for ...

1. Lead with questions, not answers.

Wurtzel resisted the urge to walk in with “the answer.”

Wurtzel would keep asking questions until he had a clear picture of reality and its implications. “They used to call me the prosecutor, because I would home in on a question,” said Wurtzel. “You know, like a bulldog, I wouldn’t let go until I understood. Why, why, why?”

they used questions for one and only one reason: to gain understanding. They didn’t use questions as a form of manipulation

or as a way to blame or put down others

The good-to-great leaders made particularly good use of informal meetings

“So, what’s on your mind?” “Can you tell me about that?” “Can you help me understand?” “What should we be worried about?”

It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the questions that will lead to the best possible insights.