Friday, March 02, 2007

Book 10 of 52 – Jim Collins’ Good to Great

So. One of the speakers at the conference I attended in San Francisco was Jim Collins – the author of Good to Great. Good to Great is an international bestseller that focuses on the 11 companies that have been identified as “Great” companies and what makes these companies “Great” in comparison to companies that were just “Good.”

It is an interesting empirical look at success. What makes these companies the best at what they do? What makes Wells Fargo and Walgreens “Great” companies?

Of the characteristics, the one I find the most interesting is that their CEOs were not larger than life characters like a Lee Iaococca or Donald “Jackass” Trump. Their leadership were humble and enabled the company to move forward – in so much that if they were to get hit by a bus, the company would continue to succeed. Iaococca set up his company for sure failure as soon as he left.

Whatever… you need to read the book to fully grasp this relevance…

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That's great! McCarthur was a hell of a boss. He said he'd return and he did. Of course that was four years later and by then I weighed 64 pounds and lost all my hair. My girl got married while I sat in a hundred degree jail cell made of bamboo My only fiends were the maggots that fed on my open wounds.

BTW, I've been meaning to ask you. Where will you be parking next year for RU football games? I imagine this must be a very troubling time for you. I don't know how you do it.

Keep it up with those three word movie reviews. They are funnier than anything that Sid Caesar wrote. That is, if I knew what Sid Caesar wrote. Because of a clerical snafu, I spent the 1950's locked in the VA mental ward. I was given electric shock therapy three times a day and played poker using my loose fillings as poker chips.

Gonna have something yummy tonight while you watch the third season of the OC on DVD? I'd like to watch something on the old picture box, too, but my daughter says I should stop complaining and be appreciative that she lets me stay in her cold, wet basement. On the bright side, I stopped coughing blood thanks to the the scurvy-related goiter on my neck.