Good to Great is about corporate companies that have been moderately good for a time then went on to become great for a time too. Thousands of companies are evaluated for over 40 years. Eleven companies stand out from the rest. The book looks into how these companies became great and what specific qualities contributed to greatness. It also explores whether these qualities are replicable. The book stresses the need for overall discipline.
The author argues that it’s not enough to just be good, you have to be great. Good is an enemy of great. Being just good is easier and comfortable and most companies settle at that. They simply survive and do not take the necessary risks to be the greatest in their respective industry. This incompetence breeds competitors who easily swallow the company that is stuck in mediocrity. The same ideology applies to people as well. Only a select few in society live a great life. Most people are comfortable with good and don’t necessarily feel pressured enough to take up greatness.
The book identifies several concepts to take a company from good to great. The first concept is Leadership. Every company evaluated by the author had level 5 leaders. These leaders are lower-ranking employees who utilize their skills to the max and understand how to navigate a competitive workspace. The leaders are also team players who can organize a team meant to succeed at the task at hand. Another type of leadership is level 4 effective leaders. They are capable of single-handedly forming a super team that can succeed in whatever field. These are the great leaders that lead entire companies. These types of leaders are full of vision and ideas.
Another concept is the employee discipline. The quality of leadership cannot outweigh the quality of employees. The company has to have the right individuals working in it. Having the best employees is essentially the most significant thing when running a great company. It has a higher priority than leadership, strategy or vision. Great companies should be prepared to hold off any hiring of incompetent individuals even at a time when it needs employees. Under no circumstances should the company compromise its integrity by hiring incompetent workers. As a company, the best minds in the pool of workers must be part of the companies’ flagship projects. The author notes that if a company is looking to sell off a portion of the business, they should do so but retain the best people from the department.
Only if a company is making great decisions, can it achieve great outcomes. To do this, facts must be confronted even if it's disruptive and uncomfortable. To breed this kind of environment, great company leaders need to trust that everyone in the company has a right to speak out their ideas and those ideas are taken seriously. It needs to be teamwork on all fronts. People need to feel comfortable enough in a workspace to want to converse freely. A leader of a great company does not run the company with an authoritarian mindset. The leader is open to new ideas and learns from their mistakes.
Great companies need disrupters. It needs individuals who focus on the essential and ignore everything else. This mind-set, while it runs the risk of going rampant, is essential in mapping out the road map to greatness. The author argues that as long as the company faces its obstacles honestly, then the company can successfully navigate any troubled waters on its way to greatness. No matter the risks that come with achieving greatness, the key quality to note is discipline. To build a great company, you require disciplined individuals, disciplined ideas, and disciplined actions.
