A Review of Collins’ Good to Great

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A review of Collins’ Good to Great

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Abstract

Collins and his research team sought to identify traits that separate great organizations from those considered good.  Good- to- great companies were identified as those who produced fifteen year stock returns that bested the market average by seven times. These companies were compared and contrasted to companies with similar corporate profiles that failed to make the same types of gains over the same time period. Their findings suggest that organizations that make the leap from good to great do so in in three stages: disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. Within each stage, unique concepts are utilized that guide the organization through a process of buildup and eventual breakthrough.

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Chapter One

In chapter one, Collins explains his motivations for writing Good to Great. While having dinner with a group of business leaders in 1996, Collins was given constructive criticism about the validity of one of his previous works, Built to Last.  His critic suggested that the successful businesses discussed in Built to Last, had always been great and had never been faced with the task of moving beyond being merely good. Collins states that this conversation encouraged him to explore the question, Can a company that has a history of being good become great (Collins, 2001)?

Collins utilizes the majority of the chapter to explain how he and his research team spent five years exploring how companies make the leap from good to great.

In essence, we identified companies that made the leap from good results to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. We compared these companies to a carefully selected group of comparison companies that failed to make the leap, or if they did, failed to sustain it. We then compared the good-to-great companies to the comparison companies to discover the essential and distinguishing factors at work. (Collins, 2001, p. 3).

As Collins describes the details involved in designing the research, portions of his leadership style are manifested. He frequently acknowledges the efforts of his research

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team and continually uses the word we when describing the process.  His writing also reflects a sense of humility when exploring the unknown. He admits that he and the team embraced a willingness to fail and to endure trial and error until the framework of the research met rigorous standards of significance (Collins, 2001).  

Collins concludes the chapter by reminding the reader that good being the enemy of great surpasses business and affects the very essence of humanity. He encourages us to discover what we must do to strive for greatness in all aspects of our lives.

Chapter Two

In chapter two, Collins begins to describe the first stage of what he refers to as the flywheel. The flywheel concept describes the continuum that exists within companies that make the transition from good to great and is comprised of disciplined people, disciplined thoughts, and disciplined action.  At the core of the disciplined people phase lays the Level Five Leader  (Collins, 2001).

While researching the companies selected for their study, Collins and his team discovered a wide range of leadership capabilities exhibited by those in power. These capabilities were divided into what Collins calls the “Level Five Hierarchy.” The good-to-great companies from their study all had level five leadership at the time of their breakthroughs. Collins describes the level five leader as an individual who has the desire to see their company succeed coupled with the willingness to do whatever is necessary to see that it does.  While this may seem rather obvious, it is the ways in which these types

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of leaders employ their desires that separate them from those lower on the hierarchy. Collins’ research suggests that the success of the level five leader can be found in their ability to effectively combine and utilize professional will with personal humility. When exploring the intricacies of the level five leader’s professional will, Collins notes that it is their ability to move beyond their individual ego needs ( ie, recognition, wealth, and  prestige) and onto the greater cause of the organization that sets them apart from the executives in the comparison group. Collins reports that while many of the executives in the comparison group appeared to set their successors up for failure, that the level five leaders all showed a sincere desire for the company to go onto to even greater success after their departure.