Book Review: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by Jim Collins

All too often a message has promise, but the messenger misinterprets it. That is often the case with this book, partly due to the author’s thoroughness in introducing his first concept of ‘getting the right things/people in the right places’. This concept is so extensively covered in the first half of the book that, I believe, most people assume this continues into the second part of the book and quit reading. (Or, this is enough to make conversation around an executive lunch table and so they drop it for another hot conversation topic.)

In fact, the second part is significantly different and discusses what happens once everything is in place… momentum. Since most read the first half of the book and quit, I will cover the second half first.

Momentum and incremental improvements are the key to ‘radical breakthroughs’, which, if done right, can not be recognized until well after they happen. This hurts the quick-fix consultants out there, but there is no effective way to have long lasting impact with a significant shift of direction. A quick shift requires readjustment by everybody and does not put an organization on stable ground to continue their momentum. Rather, small changes will amass into a significant step at some point but none of these alone will change the playing field or greatly move organizations position in it.

Most important about this is FOCUS, each of these changes comes with understanding the world around you but focusing on how you can make a difference. The problem comes when the scope of vision becomes to wide and, marketing is concerned with the testing results the QA department got on beta build 3, support is talking about who in sales is making their quota and sales is talking about where the executive team held their last off-site. Keeping each team focused on contributing toward the goal and feeling the energy build as they make progress is the key.

Now for the first part, get resources where they belong, even if this includes placing them in the trash. Collins describes an organization as a bus. First, get the right people you need for the journey on the bus, get the wrong people off. Yes, there are some people who are not right for the organization, it would be a disservice to the others on the team and hurt that person’s future if you did not help them get off the bus. Second, put the right people in the right seats. Great! Now that everybody is where their skills are best applied look at the tools you have and do the same. If the ticket system is garbage, replace it with something that meets your needs, money spent now will save you operating costs in the future. Monitoring application working adequately, find somebody who can make it work right.

If you are going to read this book, commit to reading the entire book, it can be worth it. The misinterpretation of G2G is partly the fault of the media, which enjoys sensationalizing that Jim Collins is advocating firing people that are not immediate contributors to the team and a fit for the culture. So learn about momentum and be comfortable with your organization not holding huge release parties for new products and be able to look back and say, ‘I was part of something great.’