I finally got around to reading Good to Great. It more or less lived up to the hype as being both inspirational and instructional. I just have three quick comments:

1. Like many business books, this would be better as a long magazine article instead of a book. The author, while deft, belabors point after point. While it was less true here than in some other business books, it's still longer than it needs to be.

2. A few of the ideas put forth -- e.g., the hedgehog concept, the three circles -- are brilliant observations, but, to my way of thinking, still require a certain kind of magic or special sauce that cannot be found by adhering to a set of principles. It's just too easy to identify and believe in the wrong Hedgehog concept and not know it until it's too late. I guess what I'm saying is that while the ideas are great, they can only go so far in helping put your business on the right track. Ingenuity, creativity, and a certain amount of luck will be needed too.

3. Don't read this on an iPhone. The charts and graphs are too small, and the software (in this case Nook, but I think all of the apps) didn't allow for enlarging the images.

But all in all, I'd still give this a very strong recommendation for anyone in a leadership role, or anyone who aspires to be in a leadership role

Finally!!! Uhhg, it took me forever to finish this book, but I finally knocked it out. This is an interesting book because some of the companies that are profiled in it are no longer in existence or are seriously struggling to stay afloat today. It is kind of amazing how much can change in 13 years. That said, this is a great read that should be read by everyone in business. I may be the last person on earth to have read it considering it was published in 2000.

The chapters did feel a little wordy to me, but all the sections were worth reading. I would probably recommend that you pick up a summary of the book, or read summaries at the end of each chapter and you should get the main takeaways from the book. Good stuff, but it could have been a substantially smaller book.

Great nuggets of wisdom with statistical backing

This book studied a series of companies that made the leap from good to great, comparing them with similar companies that did not make the leap. The researchers found reasons, beginning with what they call Level-5 leadership, for why these companies became great. Though written about businesses, the principles in this book can easily be applied to any sort of leadership.

That said, about halfway through I moved into skimming because the main points are highlighted and much of the surrounding book is kind of fluff. I mean, the stories are interesting, but you can easily get the gist of the book without reading it all. It was also somewhat jarring to read it knowing that two of the companies (Circuit City, Fannie Mae) have since crashed and burned. This does not really ruin the thesis of the book, as there is no assurance the companies profiled would remain great. Though it would be interesting to read a supplement analysis of how these companies lost their way. It was also weird to see Philip Morris spoken of so highly, simply because their good-to-great growth included growing an international market...of people addicted to smoking who will probably die! Maybe that is extreme, but it bothered me almost as much as if they had profiled successful pornographers or pimps. Philip Morris seemed to get less play in the book, so maybe the authors knew readers would not appreciate a cigarette company spoken of so highly?

Overall, a helpful and intriguing book.

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.

First of all - the audiobook was great! The author of the book was also the "voice". On the receiving and it was more like listening to a person on a stage - changing the voice tone, tempo, repeating important parts, etc. Definitely a plus for an audio version!

Btw, you won't get the secret recipe for success by reading this! Nevertheless, this book will guide you through the key parts of the successful business!

Regarding the book itself, I liked the part about getting the right people on the bus the most.

My two favourite quotes:

n  “Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated.”n

n  “First Who... Then What. We expected that good-to-great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. We found instead that they first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats—and then they figured out where to drive it. The old adage “People are your most important asset” turns out to be wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are.”n

We all deserve to have the best people around us!

Really interesting to keep thinking on application. Would love to see the 25 years later reflections but also didn’t enjoy reading it enough to seek it out

The book is based on “research” that begins by distilling “successful” public listed American companies by using a set of weak/arbitrary criteria (sans any accounting metrics). Similar weak criteria are used to find “comparison” companies. The rest of the book delves into very verbose qualitative-research explanations of some KSFs that the author believes drove these companies - with rampant generalisations and oversimplification. The book is full of models on leadership, organisational culture that are of relevance only in a 1.5 hour lecture on Business Strategy. In short - “Chicken Soup for Managers”.

The book simply is talking about how to make a great company. Not only good but great company. He is talking about the factors and the things the great companies do to become great.

Highly recommended

Why Indie Authors Should Read Business Books

I am finally pursuing my lifelong passion of becoming an author, and writing is a business, so I needed to invest in myself. I figured "the bible" of the business world would have some interesting things to say. After all, a business of one is still a business and who wouldn't enjoy the leap from mediocrity to longevity? The book made it clear that building a great business isn't just about a great leader who exits the company, only to have it fall apart. What makes a great business, and leader of the business, is someone who is able to build something that will last long after their lifetime.

That should resonate with authors. I don't know any authors that want their books to disappear without their presence? We have the benefit of creating products that at the very least will never go out of style. Innovations may change the way we read but they will never eliminate books altogether. What we write will last and it's our responsibility to build something from it so people actually give a damn about our work long after we are gone.

The lessons in this book teach a person how to develop a strategy, how to build a team, the importance of being disciplined, and the importance of managing expectations.

The Hedgehog Concept is something creatives should be able to maneuver to their advantage. It's all about finding what you can be best at, passionate about, and quantifying how to measure your success. For an author maybe that's finding a niche and having the discipline to stick with it rather than chasing the latest genre fad.

For building a team, again think about how many people it takes to make a book. You don't just write a draft and publish it on KDP. If you do, and are successful than I am jealous but most of us can't write perfection the first go around. You need beta readers to give you general feedback on what's working and what's not; you need an editor (or two) to make sure it's readable; you need a top-notch book cover (some authors can make their own, some need to add a graphic designer to their team) and finally you need to build your audience, because they're the most important part of the team.

Though there are a lot of lessons in this book the final thing I'm gonna touch on is the Stockdale Paradox. It's all about managing expectations. You can truly believe you are going to find success, while also managing that expectation. Stockdale was a POW in Vietnam who knew he would return home but kept his sanity because he knew it would be a while, while other soldiers in the camp were overly optimistic, thought they would get home by Christmas, only to be heartbroken when their expectations failed.

Pursuing a creative endeavor is still a business, and today it's never been easier for someone to enter that business It's my educated guess that it's in order for creatives to educate themselves on traditional business practices if they hope to sustain long-term growth and success in their field.

This really livened up 6 hours of my car journey yesterday. Really quite enlightening and I love that unassuming CEOs are most effective and that executive compensation has no correlation with creating great companies. The idea that building a great company is no more effort than a mediocre one was one that appealed too. Getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats is something that will stay with me forever now too. This really is a must read for anyone in business and is totally inspiring. Even though I’m off work for a few days, I can’t wait to get back to it and implement what I’ve learnt now and get that flywheel turning faster!

Helped me think through my leadership and organization. The principle of getting the right people in the bus and the flywheel are my top take aways.