Running head: Good to Great Book Review |
In partial fulfillment for the requirement for
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND COUNSELING

BY
TIFFANY TURNER-BANKS

11/12/2011

Jim Collins and his research team have done a wonderful job identifying what it takes for a company to go from good to great. I found this book extremely interesting and would like to share several of my thoughts. The study looks at companies that appeared on the Fortune 500 from the years of 1965 to 1995, looking for those that, for 15 years, either tracked or underperformed the stock market, followed by a transition, and subsequently returning at least 3 times the stock market for at least 15 years. The eleven companies included in the …show more content…
Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems. One key to greatness is the subtle but powerful combination of responsibility and freedom. Good-to-great companies create a culture of discipline. They attract disciplined people, reward disciplined thought, and celebrate disciplined action. In chapter five the author discuss the hedgehog concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles) The key is to understand what your organization can be the best in the world at and equally important what it cannot be the best at not what it “wants” to be the best at. The Hedgehog Concept is not a goal, strategy, or intention, it is an understanding. Good to great companies set their goals and strategies based on understanding; comparison companies set their goals and strategies based on audacity. The author reveals it took four years on average for the good to great companies to get the hedgehog concept. In chapter 6 the book maintains that everyone wants to be at the top, but some organizations lack the discipline to find out, with egoless clarity, what they can do to be the best or to exert all of their energies,