About this title: Can a good company become a great one and, if so, how? After a five-year research project, Collins concludes that good to great can and does happen. In this book, he uncovers the underlying variables that enable any type of organization to make the leap from good to great while other organizations remain only good. Rigorously supported by evidence ...
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE BUSINESS BOOKS
Date Published: 2001-01-01
ISBN-13:9780712676090ISBN:0712676090
Description: New. Hardback w/ DJ. Enjoyable reading copy for your personal pleasure. You are buying a Book in NEW condition with very light shelf wear to include very light edge and corner wear. Buy it Now! ! ! As always, thank you for buying this book from International Book Source, YOUR ONE source FOR ALL your BOOK related NEEDS. Please remember to CHOOSE carefully how QUICKLY you would like to RECEIVE this material FAST, or standard (on next page). Thanks again! ! ! ! read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: ARROW BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780712676090ISBN:0712676090
Description: BRAND NEW HARDBACK. 324 pages. (324 pages) can a good company become a great one and, if so, how? after a five-year research project, the author concludes that good to great can and does happen. here, he uncovers the underlying variables that enable any type of organization to make the leap from good to great while other organizations remain only good. illustrations (Hardback) read more
Description: Fine; Collectible. Collectible 1st Edition (2001 HC), 1st printing with 10 full numberline. Excellent condition. No writings/underlines/highlights. Pages are nice and clean. Minor shelfwear/small rip on coner of dj (~1cm) re-enforced by tape. Free deliver confirmation! Satisfaction guaranteed! read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780712676090ISBN:0712676090
Description: New. Can a good company become a great one and, if so, how? After a five-year research project, the author concludes that good to great can and does happen. Here, he uncovers the underlying variables that enable any type of organization to make the leap fr... read more
Description: New. DISPATCHED FROM UNITED KINGDOM. NO EXPEDITED SHIPPING! Please note orders are confirmed immediately and may take 2-3 business days to ship. This processing time is in addition to the shipping time. Please allow 10-14 days for delivery. Brand new item. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: G20091122101337D. read more
Description: New. 0712676090 New book, yet which has minor wear that occured during storage. May have been acquired from bookstore owner who snipped the first page so as to remove his store stamp. Will expedite shipping if seller requests and pays additional postage. Will ship immediately... read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly imported from the UK using DHL or Royal Mail international mail WITH TRACKING NUMBER. D elivery is typically 5-10 working days. Please do not select expedited shipping. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). read more
Publisher: ARROW (A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE GROUP), UK
ISBN-13:9780712676090ISBN:0712676090
Description: Please note that deliveries to addresses in the UK and Europe will be in 4-14 business days. Other countries should refer to Alibris standard times. Built to Last was a phenomenal success: 'It is a fair assumption that as the seminal importance of this book begins to permeate the upper echelons of business and business schools...Collins and Porras will emerge as the gurus to watch over the next decade. ' The Director. Good to Great explores a whole new concept, backed by the rigorous research ... read more
Publisher: ARROW (A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE GROUP), UK
ISBN-13:9780712676090ISBN:0712676090
Description: Built to Last was a phenomenal success: 'It is a fair assumption that as the seminal importance of this book begins to permeate the upper echelons of business and business schools...Collins and Porras will emerge as the gurus to watch over the next decade. ' The Director. Good to Great explores a whole new concept, backed by the rigorous research standards which gave Built to Last such an impact. 1. Good is the Enemy of Great--the scope of the project 2. Level 5 Leadership--the type of leader ... read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly shipped from our UK warehouse using Royal Mail or DHL. International Priority mail for non-UK deliveries. Delivery is typically 2-4 working days for UK delivery. Heavier or more expensive books are shipped with a TRACKING NUMBER. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). read more
Publisher: ARROW (A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE GROUP), UK
ISBN-13:9780712676090ISBN:0712676090
Description: PLEASE NOTE that we do not offer expedited shipping. Orders placed with the priority shipping option will automatically be canceled. Built to Last was a phenomenal success: 'It is a fair assumption that as the seminal importance of this book begins to permeate the upper echelons of business and business schools...Collins and Porras will emerge as the gurus to watch over the next decade. ' The Director. Good to Great explores a whole new concept, backed by the rigorous research standards which ... read more
Description: Very good. Used, remainders or ex-library, english-speaking-service, Gebraucht oder Verlagsrestbestand, evtl. aus Bibliotheksbestand, bei mehrbändigen Werken bitten wir um vorherige Anfrage, korrekte Rechnung mit ausgewiesener MwSt., deutschsprachiger Service, 14-Tage-Rückgaberecht. read more
"I was hoping this book would give me some guidelines to remember when I start my own business. There were a few good points, but nothing compelling. Reading this book wasn't a very good use of my time.
Tips from the book:
First Who, then What First, get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off it), then figure out where to drive. Having the right people in the company is more important than deciding what the company will do, because the right people will help make that decision anyway. Whether a person is "right" or not depends on their character more than their knowledge and skills. Don't waste time dealing with people who aren't contributing; fire them ASAP.
Don't waste effort trying to motivate people; the right people are self-motivated. All you have to do is keep from de-motivating them.
The Hedgehog Concept To become great, use the Hedgehog Concept: concentrate on the point of intersection between what you are passionate about, what you can be the best in the world at, and what drives your economic engine. The Hedgehog Concept is named for the simple hedgehog that does one thing well (curling up for defense), and is able to defeat the crafty fox which knows many things but acts inconsistently.
A Culture of Discipline Ignore "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunities unless they fit in the 3 circles of the Hedgehog Concept.
Don't treat budgeting as allocating amounts of money to activities, but choose Hedgehog Concept activities to fully fund, and don't fund others. "Stop doing" lists are more important than "to do" lists.
Technology Accelerators Does the technology fit directly with your Hedgehog Concept? If yes, then pioneer that technology. If not, settle for parity with your competitors, or ignore it.
Greatness happens as a result of long-term, consistent behavior, not a sudden lucky break or killer app."
"How do great companies like Circuit City and Fannie Mae become and stay great while companies like GE and At&t just slog along? Circuit City and Fannie Mae are awesome and fantastic and are sure to be companies we look to far into the future for their management and business wisdom. Oh wait. Hindsight aside, I couldn't finish the book because level five leadership skills (level one to four are not defined - save that level one vodka is required to read the book) in the three circles of success functioning on the flywheel and not the doom loop hut hutting to the hedgehog principle of the engineered DNA of success are innate gene-based, scientifically researched, learned behaviors! In other words, the entire thing is hogwash coded into meaningless catch phrases and sold as deep thoughts. The book talked me into buying some Circuit City stock, though."
"The book is all about how some companies push past being just "good" and move on to being "great". The case is presented for a dozen or so companies that met a certain criteria for "good to great" and then there were comparison companies as well. Comparisons like Kroger vs. A & P, Walgreens vs. Eckerd, Wells Fargo vs. Bank of America, etc. There is a lot of data presented, and a lot of interviews with executives of those companies.
What I liked best is the summarization of the book's ideas. Everything was pretty straightforward. It was well presented, backed up with good data, and easy to follow. It presented a lot of philosophies of business that I agree with: promote from within, find good people first, discipline and focus, etc.
A good read for anyone involved in business, and I'd even say good for anyone involved in management."
"This book by Jim Collins is one of the most successful books to be found in the "Business" section of your local megabookstore, and given how it purports to tell you how to take a merely good company and make it great, it's not difficult to see why that might be so. Collins and his crack team of researchers say they swam through stacks of business literature in search of info on how to pull this feat off, and came up with a list of great companies that illustrate some concepts central to the puzzle. They also present for each great company what they call a "comparison company," which is kind of that company with a goatee and a much less impressive earnings record. The balance of the book is spent expanding on pithy catch phrases that describe the great companies, like "First Who, Then What" or "Be a Hedgehog" or "Grasp the Flywheel, not the Doom Loop." No, no, I'm totally serious.
I've got several problems with this book, the biggest of which stem from fundamentally viewpoints on how to do research. Collin's brand of research is not my kind. It's not systematic, it's not replicable, it's not generalizable, it's not systematic, it's not free of bias, it's not model driven, and it's not collaborative. It's not, in short, scientific in any way. That's not to say that other methods of inquiry are without merit --the Harvard Business Review makes pretty darn good use of case studies, for example-- but way too often Collins's great truths seemed like square pegs crammed into round holes, because a round hole is what he wants. For example, there's no reported search for information that disconfirms his hypotheses. Are there other companies that don't make use of a Culture of Discipline (Chapter 6, natch) but yet are still great according to Collins's definition? Are there great companies that fail to do some of the things he says should make them great? The way that the book focuses strictly on pairs of great/comparison companies smacks of confirmatory information bias, which is a kink in the human mind that drives us to seek out and pay attention to information that confirms our pre-existing suppositions and ignore information that fails to support them.
Relatedly, a lot of the book's themes and platitudes strike me as owing their popularity to the same factors that make the horoscope or certain personality tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator so popular: they're so general and loosely defined that almost anyone can look at that and not only say that wow, that make sense, and I've always felt the same way! This guy and me? We're geniuses! The chapter about "getting the right people on the bus" that extols the virtue of hiring really super people is perhaps the most obvious example. Really, did anyone read this part and think "Oh, man. I've been hiring half retarded chimps. THAT'S my problem! I should hire GOOD people!" Probably not, and given that Collins doesn't go into any detail about HOW to do this or any of his other good to great pro tips, I'm not really sure where the value is supposed to be.
It also irked me that Good to Great seems to try and exist in a vacuum, failing to relate its findings to any other body of research except Collins's other book, Built to Last. The most egregious example of this is early on in Chapter 2 where Collins talks about his concept of "Level 5 Leadership," which characterizes those very special folks who perch atop a supposed leadership hierarchy. The author actually goes into some detail describing Level 5 leaders, but toward the end of the chapter he just shrugs his figurative shoulders and says "But we don't know how people get to be better leaders. Some people just are." Wait, what? People in fields like Industrial-Organizational Psychology and Organizational Development have been studying, scientifically, what great leaders do and how to do it for decades. We know TONS about how to become a better leader. There are entire industries built around it. You would think that somebody on the Good to Great research team may have done a cursory Google search on this.
So while Good to Great does have some interesting thoughts and a handful of amusing or even fascinating stories to tell about the companies it profiles (I liked, for example, learning about why Walgreens opens so many shops in the same area, even to the point of having stores across the street from each other in some cities), ultimately it strikes me as vague generalities and little to no practical information about how to actually DO anything to make your company great."
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