Good to Great Synopsis


1) Level 5 Leadership


Leaders required for the transition from good to great are not high profile, loud, commanding personalities. Instead the leaders (which he labels as Level 5 leaders) are self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy at times. Most importantly they also have a strong will to succeed. These leaders are strong, but not loud. The Level 5 leader leads by example. They do not need to bask in the glow of accolades, but work to see results.


2) First Who….Then What


It is often assumed that leaders begin by setting a vision and a strategy. Mr. Collins discovered that organizations that went from good to great started by making sure that they had the right people around them. They made sure that the right people were on the bus, the wrong people were off the bus, and right people were in the right seats—then they figured out where to drive the bus. The most important part of going from good to great is having the right people to make it happen.


3) Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)


You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of difficulties, AND at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. Organizations that go from good to great never lose faith that they will succeed, but also don’t run away from the obstacles that get in their way.


4) The Hedgehog Concept


There is a famous essay by Isaiah Berlin that divides the world into hedgehogs and foxes. The essay is based on an ancient Greek parable: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” The fox is a cunning creature, able to devise a myriad of complex strategies for sneak attacks upon the hedgehog. Because the fox is fast, sleek, fleet of foot, and crafty—the fox looks like the sure winner. The hedgehog, on the other hand, is a dowdier creature, spending its day searching for lunch and taking care of itself. Day after day the fox devises new ways to capture and come out on top of the hedgehog. As soon as the fox hatches each of it’s new plans, the hedgehog simply does what it always does and it rolls up into a little ball and becomes a sphere of sharp spikes, pointing outward in all directions. The fox then must always call off its attack and retreat into the forest to calculate a new line of attack. Day after day this scenario takes place with the fox hatching more and more clever plans, and each day the hedgehog wins. The moral of the story is to simply your situation. Success doesn’t need to be complex. Organizations that go from good to great reduce challenges to a single organizing idea. Those groups get rid of anything that doesn’t relate to becoming great.


5) A Culture of Discipline


All organizations have a culture, some organizations have discipline, but few organizations have a culture of discipline. When the people in an organization act in a disciplined manner, you don’t need hierarchy. When people act in a disciplined way, you don’t need excessive controls or rules. The culture of a great organization does not exist with excessive rules and regulations, but rather it is built on people acting in a disciplined way that doesn’t require them.


6) Technology Accelerators


There are ways that we can use technology to improve what we do. It is interesting to note that companies who go from good to great don’t use technology as the primary means of igniting transformation. They use technology carefully and well.


7) The Flywheel and the Doom Loop


Those who launch revolutions, dramatic change programs, and radical restructurings will almost certainly fail to go from good to great. No matter how dramatic the end result, the good to great transformation never happens in one magical moment. There was no one single action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. The process is more like pushing a giant heavy flywheel in one direction, turn after turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.