Abel

1. 1 - Good is Enemy of Great - Can good companies become great?? |
Jim's last book, "Built to Last", was about great companies that were always great, not good companies who became great.
Summary of Good to Great
Level 5 Leadership
Compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great leaders seem to have come from Mars. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy --these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar.
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, andthe 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.
Confront the Brutal Facts (yet never lose faith)
Every good-to-great company embraced what we came to call the Stockdale Paradox:  You must maintain unwavering faith that youcan and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties AND at the same time have the disciplone to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the 3 Circles)
Trancend the curse of competence.  Just because something is your core business -- just because you've been doing it for years or perhaps even decades --does not necessarily mean you can be the best in the world at it.  And if you cannot be the best in the world at your core business, then your core business absolutely cannot form the basis of a great company.  It must be replaced with a simple concept that reflects deep understanding of three intersecting circles.
A Culture of Discipline
All companies have culture, some companies have discipline,but few companies have a culture of discipline.  When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy.  When you have disciplined thought, you don't need bureaucracy.  When you have disciplined action, you don't need excessive controls.  When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepeurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.
Technology AcceleratorsGood-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.  They never use technology as the primary means of igniting a transformation.  Yet, paradoxically, they are pioneers in the application of carefully selected technologies.  We learned that technology by itself is never a primary, root cause of either greatness or decline.
The Flywheel and the Doom Loop
Those who launchrevolutions, dramatic change programs, and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap from good to great.  No matter how dramatic the end result, the good- to-great companies transformations never happened in one fell swoop.  There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment.  Rather, the process resembledrelentlessly pushing a giant heavy flywheel in one direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breathrough, and beyond.
From Good to Great to Built to Last
This book is about how to turn a good organization into one that produces sustained great results.  Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.Good to        Sustained     Built to         Enduring
Great            Great            Last             Great
Concepts  --> Results - + - Concepts --> Company

Capt 2
2. 2 - Level 5 Leaders |
Level 5 Executive (Humility + Will)Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. * Modest & Willful, Humble & Fearless - More...