Read for a work book study. The different references to companies was quite interesting. Although some things were a tad unrealistic and even harsh at times...I could make good connections with the work I do in education.

I hope I don't get fired for not thinking this was the greatest book ever. Honestly, business books are not exactly my cup of tea. This book started off really interesting. The author talks about habits that great companies use to keep their companies run smoothly. Many of the suggestions the author gives seem very logical -- don't have negative people work for your company, don't try to put your hand in every pot, don't stop doing things that work well and do stop doing things that aren't working, etc.

I had two major concerns with this book. First was simply the manner in which it was written. The author spent hundreds of pages explaining what could have been explained much more succinctly. It's similar to my thesis. My completed thesis was 60+ pages, but the article I wrote to be published in a journal (which consists of the same material, more or less) was only about 15 pages. I would be more interested in this book if it was written in "journal" form, allowing me to cut out the redundancy. To the author's credit, however, I appreciated that he did give examples, as often I was very confused by his explanation of the concept, and wouldn't have understood without his providing an example they found in one of the companies.

My second major concern was the methodology. The author utilizes no scientific method for gathering data, but instead utilizes a "panning for gold" approach: throw everything into the pot and see what comes out. That, combined with overwhelming hindsight bias, makes me extremely suspicious of any and every conclusion drawn in the book. While reading this book, I was reminded of one of my undergraduate teachers explaining the advantage that Freud had as an early psychologist: because of his theories, he could not be proven wrong. How do you prove that someone isn't in denial? How do you prove that someone isn't obsessed with his mother? Likewise, how do you prove that these theories proposed by Jim Collins actually work? Indeed, Collins later predicts, at the end of his book, that any company that STOPS abiding by the principles he outlines will fail. With his "interesting" methodology, I doubt that his principles would have a causal link to either success or failure. I expect that many companies fail, and that many companies are very successful, without regard to his theories. In addition, a problem with his methodology is that he measured "greatness" by a company's sustained stock market value being a certain percentage (150%) above the general market--what about private companies? How can a private company measure greatness if that is the standard?

So, overall, I enjoyed this book at the beginning and became bored with it by the end. I think there are some good principles that can be pulled out of it, but I fear that some companies will take this book too much to heart and let other important factors slip.

Rob, please don't fire me. :)

A five year research study dedicated to analyzing the results of its own sampling bias without realizing it and puffed up with so much unnecessary fluff that the essence of the book could have been distilled on the front cover in a few bullet points under the title and it would have probably still been considered a waste of time to read.

Küçümseyerek okumaya başladığım bu kitap biraz utandırdı beni. Neye dayanarak küçümsemişim bilmem!

Kitap, çok titiz ve şeffaf bir araştırmanın sonucu yazılmış. Hem kafamdaki bir çok kalıbı kırdığını - en azından bazılarından şüphe etmemi sağladığını - hem de yönetim alanında ne kadar geride kaldığımızı bir kez daha hatırlattığını söyleyebilirim.

Mesela her zaman önce pozisyonun belli olması gerektiğini, ondan sonra bu pozisyon için eleman arayışına çıkılacağını iddia ederdim. Fakat bu kitap nitelikli insan gücünün pozisyondan daha önemli olduğunu söylüyor. Elinizde iyi insan malzemesi olduktan sonra pozisyon bulmak daha verimlidir diyor. Zaman zaman, bir garsonun işini ne kadar iyi yaptığını görüp, biraz fantaziye kaçarak da olsa, "bu adamı tek satır kod yazamasa da yazılım uzmanı olarak almak isterdim, nasıl olsa kısa zamanda onu da aynı özen ve dikkatle öğrenecek, yapacaktır" dediğimi hatırladım. Ama hiç "önce insan, sonra pozisyon" diye teorize etmemiştim.

Kesinlikle kaçırılmaması gereken bir kitap. İyi kitaplar sadece kendi alanlarıyla ilgili değil, kişisel yaşamla ilgili de bir şeyler söylüyorlar.

Great nuggets of wisdom with statistical backing

Contrary to some of the negative reviews, I found Collin's methodology to be pretty consistent. He lines up a bunch of stock-market data over the long term (the quantitative), and then tries to find explanations for why some companies just keep getting better (the qualitative). He also tests which companies don't fit the hypothesis even though quantitatively fit.

The odd thing is that if you look at stock market investment strategies, what this book actually recommends is a strategy that looks pretty close to Warren Buffet's. Don't take my word for it; go look up some investment screens for choosing companies and apply Collin's principles, and see whose investment strategy the resulting screen most resembles.

The book was "cited by several members of The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council as the best management book they've read."

Publishers Weekly called it "worthwhile", although "many of Collins' perspectives on running a business are amazingly simple and commonsense".


Holt and Cameron state the book provides a "generic business recipe" that ignores "particular strategic opportunities and challenges."

Steven D. Levitt noted that some of the companies selected as "great" have since gotten into serious trouble, such as Circuit City and Fannie Mae, while only Nucor had "dramatically outperformed the stock market" and "Abbott Labs and Wells Fargo have done okay". He further states that investing in the portfolio of the 11 companies covered by the book, in the year of 2001, would actually result in underperforming the S&P 500. Levitt concludes that books like this are "mostly backward-looking" and can't offer a guide for the future."

Collins reaffirmed that "The books never promised that these companies would always be great, just that they were once great."

-لماذا يجب علي أن أكون عظيمًا؟ ألا يكفي أن أكون ناجحًا ؟
لأن الأشخاص العظماء لا يبذلون مجهود أكثر من الاشخاص الجيدين، هم فقط يبذلونه بالطريقة الصحيحة .
-لمَ يجب أن أجعل من عملي ذلك عظيمًا؟
لأنك إن كنت تعمل في شئ تشعر بالشغف تجاهه، تطوره وتنميه، وتشعر بمغزى لما تفعله فمن الطبيعي أن ترغب بجعله عظيمًا. إن لم تكن تشعر بذلك تجاه ما تفعله، فعلى الأغلب أنت لا تقوم بالعمل الصحيح، والعملية برمتها تحتوي علي خطأ.
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لست مديرة تنفيذية أو رائدة أعمال أو حتى صاحبة مشروع صغير، لكن الكتاب بالنسة لي ليس فقط لهؤلاء ومؤسساتهم، هو للأنسان، للحياة بشكل عام .هذا من ناحية ، من ناحية أخرى فقد اكسبني معرفة أكبر بعالم الأعمال والشركات والمؤسسات، وأزاد من شغفى .
ماطلت عندما اقترحه أبي بحجة أنني لست شغوفة بهذا القسم من الكتب، لكنني أحببته، وساعود إليه كثيرًا في المستقبل لأستقي المزيد من الحكمة والخبرة والتجربة المنصهرة بين فصوله.
شكرٌ جزيل لفريق البحث الدؤب ، وللكاتب.

كتاب إداري ممتاز عن نموّ المنظّمات

- الفريق المنضبط، يعطون فكرًا منضبطًا، فيكون التنفيذ منضبطًا
- ضع أفضل موظّفيك في أكبر فرصك لا مشاكلك
- مناخ الحقيقة: القيادة بالأسئلة لا التوجيهات، والمشاركة في الحوار لا الإجبار، والتحليل بلا لوم
- "ركّز الله يرحم أمّك علشان تفلح"

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, James C. Collins

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't is a management book by Jim C. Collins that describes how companies transition from being good companies to great companies, and how most companies fail to make the transition.

The book was published on October 16, 2001.

Greatness is defined as financial performance several multiples better than the market average over a sustained period. Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great?

After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. Collins finds the main reason certain companies become great is they narrowly focus the company’s resources on their field of key competence.

عنوانهای چاپ شده رد ایران: «از خوب به عالی»؛ «از عرش به فرش»؛ «انتخاب برتری»؛ «انتخاب عالی»، مترجم: عهدیه عبادی؛ «با انتخاب خود بزرگ شوید»؛ «با انتخاب خود مهم شوید» مترجم: متین عربلو؛ «بهتر از خوب»، مترجم: فضل الله امینی؛ «تعالی مبنی بر انتخاب صحیح»، مترجمها حسن زارعی ثمین، بهزاد محمدیان، مهدی شعله؛ نویسنده: جیم کالینز؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیستم ماه فوریه سال2006میلادی

عنوان: از خوب به عالی: چرا برخی از شرکتها جهش میکنند...؛ و سایرین نمیکنند؛ نویسنده: جیم کالینز؛ مترجم ناهید سپهرپور؛ تهران، پیک آوین، سال1383؛ در301ص؛ جدول، عکس، نمودار، شابک9648148031؛ چاپهای چهارم و پنجم سال1384؛ چاپهای هفتم و هشتم سال1386؛ چاپهای نهم و دهم سال1387؛ چاپ یازدهم سال1388؛ شابک9789648148039؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، آوین، سال1386؛ چاپ سیزدهم سال1389؛ چاپ هیجدهم سال1392؛ موضوع راهبری، برنامه ریزی راهبردی، تحول در سازمان، مدیریت، نوآوری - سده21م

عنوان: از خوب به عالی: چرا برخی شرکتها پیشرفت میکنند و برخی دیگر از پیشرفت باز میمانند؛ نویسنده: جیم کالینز؛ مترجم لیلا رضیئی؛ تهران، آرایان، سال1395؛ در336ص؛ شابک9786007133750؛

عنوان: از خوب به عالی: چرا برخی شرکتها جهش میکنند و بعضیهای دیگر نه؛ نویسنده: جیم کالینز؛ مترجم: صدیقه اشتری؛ تهران، هورمزد، سال1395؛ در350ص؛ شابک9786006959781؛

عنوان: از عرش به فرش: چگونه شرکت‌های قدرتمند سقوط می‌کنند؟ و چرا برخی از شرکت‌ها هرگز تسلیم نمی‌شوند؟؛ نویسنده: جیم کالینز؛ مترجم لیلا سالاری؛ تهران، هورمزد، سال1395؛ در270ص؛ شابک9786006958927؛

عنوان: انتخاب برتری، مترجم: عبدالرضا رضایی نژاد، تهران، فرا، سال1394، در202ص؛
و ...؛

خوب دشمن عالی است؛ این مهم‌ترین مفهومی است، که «جیم کالینز» نویسنده ی این کتاب کوشش دارد، خوانشگر را متوجه آن کند؛ آقای «کالینز» به همراه تیم پژوهشی خود، حرکت مجموعه‌ ای از شرکت‌ها را، در طول سی سال، بررسی کرده‌ اند، و به نتایجی رسیده‌ اند، که نشان می‌دهد «چرا تعدادی از شرکت‌ها از مرحله ی خوب رد می‌شوند، و به سطح عالی می‌رسند»؛ ما شرکت‌هایی رو می‌شناسیم، که خوب هستند؛ شرکت‌هایی در دوره‌ ای، رشد فزاینده‌ ای دارند، و دوباره افول می‌کنند؛ اما شرکت‌های عالی، که اتفاقا ممکن است نامشان، به اندازه شرکت‌های خوب، شناخته شده نباشد، هماره رشدی صعودی را تجربه می‌کنند، و ارزش سهام آنها، چندین برابر نرخ سهام بازار است؛ ...؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 05/12/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 14/10/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Even though this book is over 10 years old, the concepts are still relevant and provide guidance on how to manage effectively for the long haul. Following the principles can assist with getting better employee engagement and formulating a business strategy designed for success. It's important to note that many of these concepts will take some effort and that there are no "silver bullets" that can suddenly turn a failing company into a great one, however the author does a great job of explaining the principal differences between the companies that took off (what he refers to as the "fly wheel") and those who remained stagnant or died.

I did some additional research and while the majority of the companies on the "good to great" list are no longer "great" - I found that many of these companies made changes that deviated from the principles outlined in the book. Would these companies have declined if they hadn't made those changes? We'll never know for certain, since the research is merely inductive and there is no way to prove causation. I do know this is a wonderful book for mentoring new managers and getting them on course to be excellent leaders.

James C. Collins has an interesting and legit background, with 4 published books in total.
In my eyes, Good to Great had a few good ideas, but everything is too generalist. Each company is unique and the book is too abstract, avoiding to put the dot on any i. Felt more like a longer essay of why X company made it big in the past or like a research paper that tried to cover too many things at once with the goal of somehow transporting it into the reader's business. I'm not entirely sure how come it was so highly rated and got into the tops.