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Good to Great

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"Good is the enemy of great” is the first sentence in Jim Collins book; Good to Great, Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Other Don’t. Jim Collins says, because good is the enemy of great, is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. This book is packed with leading edge thinking, understandable examples, and data to support the conclusions. It is a challenge for CEOs, entrepreneurs and leaders to show evidence of the discipline required to shift their companies from Good to Great.
Jim Collins and his research team of 20 compared and contrasted how many companies made the leap to greatness and how other companies didn’t. Based on bundles of evidence and a large quantity of data, he and his team uncovered how the good to great companies like Abbott, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo maintained great results and accomplished enduring greatness, evolving into companies that were undeniably “Built to Last”.
It’s strange that the research performed showed an opposition of what we had always thought, “People are our most important asset”. Instead the researched showed that the right people are the better people, in other words “First get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus” and then later decide on when and where to drive the bus.
Collins plans out three stages, each with two key concepts. These six concepts are the heart of Good to Great and he dedicates a chapter to explaining each of them: Level 5 Leadership, First Who Then What, Confront the Brutal Facts, The Hedgehog Concept, A Culture of Discipline and Technology Accelerators.
“Level 5 leadership” is what separates good companies from great companies.
This style of leadership forms the top level of a 5-level triangle or hierarchy that ranges from just about skilled

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