OK, so I'm making my way through this book... painfully, slowly, pyromaniacly.... and, I do have to say it is FANTASTIC if you find yourself surrounded by people without common sense. Of course, I don't have a business degree... oh, wait, I'm not supposed to have common sense.

Anyways, now that I've trailed off into ADD tangents, my boss gave me this book to read and I do like the principles. I have one thing to say: way better than the teaching books I used to have to read. GEESH!

I enjoyed reading Good to Great. The author's writing style was perfect for an airplane book (and was exceptional for a non-airplane book). Was it inspirational? Sure. Was my mind stimulated by the examples given? Yes. The great thing about the book is that it also provides really neat histories of the businesses covered. So, no, I don't think it's fair to say it can be boiled down to a collection of bullet points.

My biggest problem with this book specifically (to ignore the plight of [topic]-help books in general) is that some of the recommended behaviors were paradoxical. What if your hedgehog concept isn't going to work? What exactly is wrong with being a fox? You're supposed to accept that "great" employees leaving is natural, as they apparently outgrow the opportunities available to them, but what if there's more to it? What if the company is in a rapid-growth industry where 15 years might as well be a millennium? Many of the best companies do fade after failing to improve on their most brilliant innovations, not because they lose discipline or go into the doom loop or whatever, but because they simply run out of brilliance. Should you always feel comfortable spending X years getting your #$%@ together under the premise of one day achieving a legendary level of success?

I don't have the answer. I'm not sure this book does either, but, like I said, it was a lot of fun. The Outsiders is a fantastic CEO-centric follow-up to this book written 12 years later that you I recommend you pick up.

See this review and others on my blog

Simple, yet very striking message that has resonated with me perfectly.
Author (& the well-organised, scientific approach to back up his thesis) confirms what my experience tells me - that transformation of good to great is enabled by simple truths we keep neglecting on the daily basis because we need some stuff "right here & right now", e.g.:

* building up team in a steady way, with PROPER people, not just available people
* strategic goals are important for everyone, you just sometimes need to state them in a different way for different people - but having unique specialty/target/focus(/thing your company excels in) aka hedgehog concept is crucial to distinguish from mediocrity
* iterative, tiny (but consistent) steps - not the quasi-random "leapfrogging" - is what builds up success long-term
* culture of discipline - I couldn't emphasise it too much - some sort of discipline & duty HAS to be within people, not in policies or control mechanisms (which lead only to US vs THEM syndrome)
* high standards (by example) from the top to the ground

17 years have passed since this book has go published, but it didn't get outdated at all - highly recommended classic.

This book was very refreshing and should be required reading for any MBA student. It cuts through a lot of the ideological fluff found in most business books. Definitely going to be a frequent re-read.

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.

In "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't" Collins tried to explain how a company can reach greatness. for this, his model which he choose after tough benchmarking research process consisted of 11 companies that were able to make the leap.
- To convert from good to great, there is no specific one turn but it's a process.
- Who are the great leaders? surprisingly they are not the noisy, outgoing and extremely extrovert type but they rather the calm, reserved, strong willing who aren't in any way arrogant.
- What are the steps that should be taken to make the convert from good to great?
here we can differentiate between type 4 leaders who start by "What" (vision and strategy) and then "Who" on the contrary, type 5 leaders who are the great ones start with choosing the best calipers the ones who will save time and effort and who are self-motivated and whose management is easy.
How to lead? what is the best way to lead? it's not your role to force an answer instead try to put great questions and let your team think with you and choose the best way. so heated discussions and debates are a healthy sign. you and your team should seek complete understanding of the situation. it's how you convert the available data to useful information.
There are 2 types of people, the fox who is cunning, devise myriad of complex strategies for sneak attacks upon the hedgehog and there is the hedgehog who simplifies a complex world into a single organizing idea.
- Technology can't turn wrong people to the right ones and it's just a tool for greatness.
- Motivation: great leaders weren't motivated by fear of others to exceed them but fear of being left behind.
- Good to Great companies don't necessarily have a passion for customers or respect for the individual or quality or social responsibility or even the content of their values .but rather to strongly believe in their core of values.
You won't find a new miracle here but rather some good ideas or principles

Inspiring, clear, practical. Wisdom that's almost too simple to be true. But such wisdom is the hardest to implement, isn't it?

2024 Review
I challenged myself in 2024 to re-read the books that impacted me most in my 20s. I wasn't sure if Good to Great fit that descriptor, but I figured the only way I would find out is if I re-read it.
And I'm glad I did.
This is a solid book studying business culture and what it takes to thrive. Now granted, did the list of "great" businesses age well? No. I don't think one of the listed businesses is currently great. But as Collins points out at the end, that doesn't take away from the fact that for a time in the 1990s they were great, and they were great in a way that defeated the odds. Even if they forgot to keep it up, there is something to learn here.
It is an engaging and interesting book and I think deserves the spot on the list of most influential reads of my 20s.

2017 Review
Not a perfect book by any means but one I found thoroughly satisfying. Like many business books, I liked it because I saw aspects of Good Profit in it and I extrapolated my understanding accordingly. This book contained interesting case studies and general principles for building a successful ("great") business. It engaged me intellectually and left me with a desire to learn more. I'm glad I finally read this one!

There is a valuable lesson in this book:

- Books are printed to make someone else money.

With this singular lesson in mind you can now unlock the secrets of all business and marketing books: the lesson isn't printed on the page, it's between the lines. This book sought, as all 'business' books do, to titillate you with facts, get you revved about the possibilities in your life to acquire great and fabulous riches through the magic of 'excellence' and set you loose into the world with your hair on fire and your eyes ablaze with new possibilities.

But there is no lesson taught. Euphemisms and equations all without constants or definition fill the pages. And that's the magic: You make your own definition for these catch phrases: On the Bus, Build your Council, etc. etc. Like any great allegory, or pop song, or religious verse, you assign your own meaning and off you go.

If there's an upside to all this I think it's in the true power of a 'business' book; It energizes a group of people to do what they already know how to do and want to do. If enough people in the organization read the book and buy into this zeal then change, for better or worse, can happen. But don't expect to actually learn anything more than a bit of business history from this title. The stories are true, but there's no business lesson here that you don't already know.

So, are you ready to buy in?

I found this book interesting on two levels. One was the useful data that Collins and his team provide for what makes some companies truly great. These findings need not apply only to businesses--they can also apply to individuals, churches, etc.

The second level that interested me was all of the history of companies, such as Walgreens, Gillette, and Kroger. It was really neat to see how they got where they are today. Very useful!

It's a book full of good insights and easy to read. But business are changing so fast, that I wonder if those findings are still valid...
Are the things that made companies good to great in the past still the thing that will make great companies today?
Those companies that were studied aren't the great companies of today (2017).

There are many great reviews of this book that summarize its message in a few sentences, and that's one of the strengths of the book -- its messages are few, have memorable names for the concepts, and make sense. But in general, they can be boiled down to platitudes, and they mostly make common sense. Worrying is that rigor is applied to determine the causes of becoming great, yet causality isn't proved but implied. This reminds me of another book I read in business school that did the same kind of analysis but based on marketing and financial numbers. This kind of thing is done all the time (where's our book on greatness based on social media presense?).

Also cringeworthy are the great companies that have fallen from grace, specifically Circuit City and Fannie Mae. Seems to tell you that the environment has a big impact on greatness, at least more than I noticed in this book. (Hey, Porter!)

I listened to this on audio, and they actually do a great job for this kind of book. For one, the paper book has a number of tables and diagrams, and the narrator described them well. In addition, the book had a number of appendices, and gratefully the narrator didn't read them, but instead described them and gave examples of how they could be used. The version of the audiobook I listened to also had an extensive Q&A section at the end, answering some obvious questions that the book provoked (but not all well). These changes from pure narration of the book made this much more listenable than any other business audiobooks I've heard. On top of this, the narrator had an excitement as he read this -- it was like being at a sales presentation. It did keep the interest level up.

My test of a business book is whether I will change my actions based on the book, or if I have new things to think about. This one fails both tests. I'm not at a level in my organization or other groups that I have control enough to accomplish what is recommended. And, as I said, this was relatively common sensical. In summary, if you are in charge of hiring and/or strategic management of a group, this could be interesting. If you are a SME (and don't have your own cross country team), it's probably not worth your time - read the summaries and reviews instead.