Good to Great
Ratings99
Average rating4
The manager that hired me at my current company gave this book to me as a holiday gift. He said that he had read many business books, and few resonate, but this one did. And I'll admit, it is interesting in that the author had an entire team dive into data to figure out how companies went from good – as in, profitable but nothing special – to way out-performing their competitors based on share value. The author then took the findings and reduced them to some graspable concepts, linked together with vignettes from each of the “Good to Great” companies to drive the concepts home.
But in the end, it's still a business book, and therefore, not necessarily fun for me to read, personally.
Fascinating if a little outdated study of why a few companies succeed for a long time.
Why did Eckerd fail, when Walgreens took over? Collins explains the basics behind why some companies are able to make the leap to becoming great, while some are destined to fail.
11 companies is a small sample size, they state that they only chose 11 companies because those are the ONLY companies that met their rigorous standards however to me that seems to undermine what “great” means. The author's definition of “great” seems to be very narrow and without doing research on other “great” companies (perhaps ones that are not publically traded) it's hard to say if these techniques are truly ones that all “Great” companies use or just these 11 that happened to perform well in the stock market for a period of 20 years. Also, I took this entire book with a grain of salt because a lot of these companies are either no longer “great” even by the author's definition, perhaps never were great by a slightly wider definition of “great”. Fannie Mae no longer exists, nor does Circut City. And Philip Morris? Sure perhaps they did great in the stock market but can one really say that a tobacco company is “great” by that many metrics?
Classic read. Although I've encountered a lot of its lessons before in different shapes and forms, it was nonetheless still fun to listen to. Jim Collins is an engaging narrator who is clearly passionate about these yearlong deep-dives he and his team have conducted in the field of business.
Why did Eckerd fail, when Walgreens took over? Collins explains the basics behind why some companies are able to make the leap to becoming great, while some are destined to fail.
I read through this book with fellow interns at my church. Although it is a secular book, it is great to see how relevant the concepts in Collins' book are to someone working in a church environment (and more specifically within a particular ministry within the church) as well as to my own personal spiritual life. It was hard to get through some of the more intensely business-oriented sections or when he began going into stocks and the like, but overall, this book is one that everyone should really read. It is quite impressive the amount of research and time Collins and his team put into the “Good to Great” study that led to this book.
Collins summarizes main points well in the grayed boxes throughout the book as well as in a summary section of “Key Points” and “Unexpected Findings” after each chapter. Reading this made me want to think about how I can go from being good to great in the way God can lead me to being and is probably a book that I will reread in the future.
I really enjoyed reading about companies that have gone from good to great. The book identifies a variety of companies that have gone from good to rate based on a systematic scale utilizing their stock prices. The differences between good to great were very interesting. The most interesting part was learning about the things that both good and great companies continue to do with varied success. The great companies find a few extra factors to make themselves great. This is a great book to read if you are looking to identify ways to improve your company or leadership style.