Book review: Jim Collins, Good to Great: why some companies make the leap – and others don’t

When 21 persons team up to do research on 1435 companies (including almost all the Fortune 500 companies , examine 6000 articles and 2000 pages of interview transcripts to generate 384 Megabytes of data over a time frame of five years in to decide what leads companies from goodness to greatness , select 11 great companies (according to definite criteria ) on the basis of their research , and make conclusions on the very nature that made these companies truly great , the result is Jim Collin 's Good to Great : Why some companies make the leap-and others

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Jim Collins , a management research veteran , who set up a management laboratory in Colorado , was doing research for the book Built to Last ' which he co-authored with Jerry Porras , when he was interviewing the CEO of Mckinsey who asked him , Most companies are not great-they are just good . How do companies go from being just good to great ' This question inspired Collins to undertake this study . The study included interviews with leaders and people at different levels in various organizations , people who were devoted to organizational excellence . The book covers possibly every area of management the database includes published information , SEC reports and interviews , and though some of the findings are commonsense , the others might prove to be surprising to most of the readers

The most surprising aspect of the study is the eleven companies that satisfied the criteria set by Collins and his team . Abbott , Circuit City , Fannie Mae , Gillette , Kimberly Clark , Kroger , Nucor , Phillip Morris , Pitney Bowes , Wells Fargo , and Walgreens made the list while the much more famous companies like GE , Coca-Cola , Wal Mart , Intel , IBM etc did not make the list . The fact that these companies had to maintain their greatness over a period of time is not only unique but also explains what is needed to fight arrogance due to past success . Many companies traversed the distance from good to great in a very short period of time , but could not maintain the greatness . Companies having the same resources and opportunities in the same industry were also compared . The transition points of these companies were examined , and after that , their performance over the next 15 years was studied to come to the conclusions . The companies increased profits drastically during these periods and added a lot value to their stock prices , a proof of their efforts on improving themselves constantly over a period of time A conclusive point was on the leadership : Collins distributed the type of leaders into 5 levels-a highly capable individual , a contributing team member , a competent manager , an effective leader and the level-5 executive . However , as generally perceived , our level-5 executive is not ruthless and without the tendency to compromise . Rather he is an executive who builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will ' A strong will , to do whatever is needed to produce the best possible results , simple values , taking responsibility for the results , modesty , no tolerance for mediocrity-all these...