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Good is the enemy of great.
Ten of eleven good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company,
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.
People are not your most important asset. The right people are.
“One ought not to reject the data merely because one does not like what the data implies.”
“I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job.”
Humility + Will = Level 5
Setting Up Successors for Success
Level 5 leadership is not just about humility and modesty. It is equally about ferocious resolve, an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the company great.
Ten out of eleven good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company, three of them by family inheritance.
Level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck). At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly.
The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.
First, if you begin with “who,” rather than “what,” you can more easily adapt to a changing world.
if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away.
if you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether you discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company.
first get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it.
If you have the right executives on the bus, they will do everything within their power to build a great company, not because of what they will “get” for it, but because they simply cannot imagine settling for anything less.
The right people will do the right things and deliver the best results they’re capable of, regardless of the incentive system.
“We hire five, work them like ten, and pay them like eight.”
placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience.
his best hiring decisions often came from people with no industry or business experience.
“The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving.”
Some of the comparison companies had an almost chronic addiction to layoffs and restructurings.42
Practical Discipline #1: When in doubt, don’t hire—keep looking.
Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people.
Practical Discipline #2: When you know you need to make a people change, act.
Instead of firing honest and able people who are not performing well, it is important to try to move them once or even two or three times to other positions where they might blossom.
Two key questions can help. First, if it were a hiring decision (rather than a “should this person get off the bus?” decision), would you hire the person again? Second, if the person came to tell you that he or she is leaving to pursue an exciting new opportunity, would you feel terribly disappointed or secretly relieved?
Practical Discipline #3: Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.
He was so good at assembling the right people around him, and putting the right people in the right slots, that he just didn’t need to be there all hours of the day and night.
For no matter what we achieve, if we don’t spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we cannot possibly have a great life. But if we spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect—people we really enjoy being on the bus with and who will never disappoint us—then we will almost certainly have a great life, no matter where the bus goes.
“Facts are better than dreams.”33
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.
Lead with questions, not answers.
a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles:
What you can be the best in the world at
What drives your economic engine
What you are deeply passionate about
To have a fully developed Hedgehog Concept, you need all three circles.
focus entirely on those few things we knew we could do better than anyone else, not getting distracted into arenas that would feed our egos and at which we could not be the best.”
what they actually have the potential to be the best at and, just as important, what they cannot be the best at.
doing what you are good at will only make you good; focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path to greatness.
a company does not need to be in a great industry to become a great company.
This doesn’t mean, however, that you have to be passionate about the mechanics of the business per se (although you might be). The passion circle can be focused equally on what the company stands for.
It took about four years on average for the good-to-great companies to clarify their Hedgehog Concepts.
There must be something we can become the best at, and we will find it! We must also confront the brutal facts of what we cannot be the best at,
The good-to-great companies are more like hedgehogs—simple, dowdy creatures that know “one big thing” and stick to it. The comparison companies are more like foxes—crafty, cunning creatures that know many things yet lack consistency.
They hired self-disciplined people who didn’t need to be managed, and then managed the system, not the people.
“Anything that does not fit with our Hedgehog Concept, we will not do.
Start a “Stop Doing” List Do you have a “to do” list? Do you also have a “stop doing” list?
