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BookPrices.net - Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
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List Price: $27.50
Our Price: $10.49
Your Save: $ 17.01 ( 62% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Collins
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9780066620992
ISBN: 0066620996
Label: Collins
Manufacturer: Collins
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 300
Publication Date: 2001-10
Publisher: Collins
Release Date: 2001-10-16
Studio: Collins
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: 7 years, apparently Jim Collins understood "built to last"
Comment: I have owned this book on CD since '03 and just this year purchased the hardcover edition. Through his teams research and analysis, Jim Collins has constructed a potentially timeless classic for business people and leaders. GTG will add to your professional talents, it is inspiring and compelling for those of us that border on obsession with our professional lives. This book has helped me to hire and fire. I revisit it regularly for inspiration. GTG is truly an investment in your own future. If you can apply the techniques written about here you will see a difference in the quality of the life for you and those that you work with daily. The simple concepts of first who, then what and the hedgehog, bring a simplistic and valuable way to approach our day to day challenges. Those very simple core values of GTG leaders are easy to articulate but very difficult to practice and execute consistently. Once mastered they are very powerful and rewarding. Time spent with GTG will certainly provide a return. Don't wait any longer. Your thoughts and opinions are always welcome.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good To Great Is The Best Business Book That I Have Ever Read!!
Comment: This book does a great job of making business interesting. It literally reads like a novel. I couldn't put it down, even though I just completed it for the third time. Although I do not subscribe to it in totality, its concepts are based upon thousands of research hours and are well presented with plenty of examples from the famous companies included in the book. I have handed it out to the management team of a recently purchased company and have no doubt that at the very least it will stimulate strategic thinking. I recommend it highly!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Well presented analysis
Comment: Jim Collins is a business professor and author of three previous business books. Good to Great seeks to answer the questions, "Is it possible for a good company with an ingrained culture of average performance to become truly great?" and, if so, "how?"
Indeed, Collins argues, the answer is "yes," (hence the name oft the book) and then provides seven characteristics of companies that make such a transition. After engaging in a thorough analysis of several years worth of Fortune 500 companies (the research is explained in the first chapter and several indices), Collins identified a handful of companies that made such a leap (in markets average or difficult markets) and contrasted them with nearly identical companies that remained average.
Collins argues that good-to-great companies begin with disciplined people--putting a highly self-differentiated person as the CEO (or its equivalent), and then hiring other self-differentiated people/firing weak or aggressive people/placing strong employees in places with the most growth potential. Good-to-great companies also practiced disciplined thought in that they came to terms with difficult facts while maintaining optimism and followed a business plan with a limited focus. Finally, these companies displayed disciplined action in that they were self-disciplined (no bureaucratic policies or carrot-and-stick policies were needed to force productivity), and used technology wisely to keep within their narrow focus (not adopting technology for technology's sake or allowing its siren song to change the narrow business plan). Finally, Collins argues that success was difficult for these good-to-great companies to come by at first, but then mild successes yielded moderate successes; moderate successes yielded good successes; good successes yielded wild success to the point that the organization seemed to be on autopilot.
I found Collin's arguments compelling and I enjoyed his writing style. He presented concepts in memorable ways and presented stories to illustrate his points. I also appreciated his constant continual comparison of specific good-to-great companies with always-good companies (and even declining companies). It should be noted that this reader is not a businessman and some of the jargon was lost on me, but nevertheless the use of jargon didn't prevent me from understanding his main points.
It should also be noted that Collins has written a follow-up monograph for those in not-for-profit organizations. This reader found that there were certain aspects of this business book that didn't loan itself well to church work or work in other social sector organizations. The monograph is called "Good to Great and the Social Sector"
Recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Intriguing. A good read for anyone in an organization.
Comment: Fascinating case studies and example from the business world of success, failure and the reason for both. This is a good read for anyone interested in transforming their business or organization. More than that, it's a great read for anyone who is even part of a business or organization.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Common Sense.
Comment: As Mark Twain said "There are lies, dam lies and statics". Jim Collins missed the point at what makes a great company, Common Sense. He lost me at his Hedgehog concept and show his Stanford biases. Anyone who can speak well of Carl Marx I have a problem with. This is the problem with America business today. Too many satiations like Mr. Collins here. Keep it simple, use Common Sense, make great companies.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. --Harry C. Edwards
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