Review: "Good to Great" by Jim Collins.

A good book on Business Leadership

Good to Great is one of the books on my son Kyle's required reading list as an intern at
Sunset Christian Center.
One of the blogs I read must have referenced it, because I recognized the title, so I decided to read it after Kyle had finished.

Business Leadership books are not what I normally read, but I found this book a good read. I thought the insight were good, with enough careful statistics to enable the author to say something more than "Successful company Succeed".
The five key points of the book are:

• First Who ... Then What


• Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith).


• The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles).


• A Culture of Discipline.


• Technology Accelerators.

All of these work together. Here is my translation of the key points.

• Hire the right people


• Be honest about what you can and can not be the best at.


• Stick to only what you can: be the best at, be passionate about, and be profitable at.


• The right people working on important stuff they care about are self disciplined about it.


• Technology is not the magic answer, but it can be that magic that takes your right people, working on the right stuff, to new levels.

The book also stresses that the Rock Star CEO does not make a great company because that company is unlikely to remain great when he leaves.

hReview by Nick Chalko , 2007/05/28

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

Jim Collins

Collins 2001-10