“From Good to Great” (in quotes) - Part 2

As promised, I post the second part of the quotes highlighted by the marker while reading one of the best (from my point of view) books about business - Jim Collins's book “From Good to Great”.

See also ( first part ).

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meeting of Pitney executives at the beginning of the year is usually a 15-minute discussion of last year’s results, almost always excellent, and two hours of discussion of “unpleasant things” that could hinder the company's growth in the future.

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At that moment when the leader allows himself to become the main object of the concerns of his employees, to the detriment of really real problems, he embarks on the path leading to vegetation, and maybe even worse.


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Motivating people is a waste of time. One of the main ideas of this book: if you manage to successfully apply its conclusions, you will not have to spend time and effort on motivating your employees. If you have a strong team, it will have enough self-motivation and enthusiasm.

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There is a huge difference between being able to speak out and being able to be heard.

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Lead with questions, not answers.

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Sometimes the discussions became so tense that people began to bump into each other. Shout. Waving hands, banging on the table. Faces filled with blood, veins swelled.

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same thing continued for years, people entered Iverson’s office, raised their voices, yelled at each other, but then came to a single decision.

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When you perform an autopsy, do not look for the guilty. Thus, you will take an important step towards creating such a climate in a company in which the truth is not hidden.

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key, therefore, is not the availability of information, but the ability to turn existing information into facts that cannot be neglected. One effective way to achieve this is through the red flag method.

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I borrowed the idea of ​​“red flags” from Bruce Wolpert, who invented in his company Graniterock an effective way called “underpayment”. “Underpayment” gives the client the right to decide how much to pay and whether to pay at all: on the basis of satisfactory product or service. “Underpayment” is not a product return system. The client simply encircles the goods that do not satisfy him in the invoice, deducts its value from the total amount and writes out a check for the remaining amount.

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The paradox of Stockdale. Admiral Jim Stockdale, he was tortured more than twenty times during the eight years of his stay in the camp and the less he survived.

“I never lost faith,” he answered my question.
- And who did not survive?
“Oh, that is a simple question,” he answered. - Optimists.

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When you start by honestly trying to understand the situation you are in, the right decisions often become obvious.

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Charisma is an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time, since the strength of the personality of a leader can lead to the fact that subordinates begin to hide real facts.

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“Hedgehog Concept” or three intersecting circles. Are you a fox or a hedgehog? In the famous essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox”, Isaiah Berlin divided the world into “hedgehogs” and “foxes”, based on the ancient Greek parable: the fox knows a lot of different things, the hedgehog knows one thing, but it’s very important.

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“The concept of a hedgehog” is a simple, crystal clear concept, presented in the form of three intersecting circles and giving answers to three questions:

1. What can you be better than anyone else in the world?
2. How does your economic model work? All the great companies used some key indicator, the “common factor” was to arrive at “X”.
3. What do you especially like to do?

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If in something you are the best, you can never stay above unless you have a deep passion for what you are doing.

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What can we potentially do better than any other company, and, equally important, what we cannot do better than any other company?

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“If Karl jumped into the water at the Olympic Games,” said one of his colleagues, “he would not have done a five-revolution somersault, but would have made the best swallow in the world, and would have done it perfectly, again and again ".

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It is important to understand why you are truly passionate.

* Chief Executive Kimberly Clark said: “Traditional paper products are good, but they don’t have the charm of a diaper.”
* “Zein speaks of shaving systems with such fervor as if he were a Boeing engineer”

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On average, great companies took 4 years to develop their “hedgehog concepts”.

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There must be something in which we can become the best, and we will find it!


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Creative enthusiasm begins to dry up as the most capable people leave, reacting to the growth of bureaucracy and hierarchy.

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The task of the bureaucracy is to compensate for the lack of competence and discipline. Most companies create their own bureaucratic orders in order to manage a small percentage of the “wrong” people on the ship. Which, in turn, makes the best specialists leave.

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Transformations do not begin with the fact that you are trying to instill discipline in undisciplined people, but with the fact that you hire people with self-discipline.

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People in great companies were distinguished by an exceptional sense of responsibility, sometimes reaching fanaticism.

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Discipline, diligence, perseverance, thoroughness, zeal, industriousness, legibility, systematic, methodical, hardworking, demanding, consistent, focused, responsible - that is what characterized the companies that have achieved exceptional results.

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Nucor became a company with $ 3.5 billion. And got on the Fortune 500 list, having only four levels of management and only 25 people in the head office, including top management, finance, secretaries, etc. The whole office crowded into a rented office with a dental office.

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When Nucor had a profitable year, everyone in the company had a profitable year. When difficult times happened, everyone suffered from top to bottom. But the people above were suffering more.

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In contrast to Nucor, Bathlem Steel built for its management 21 storey office complex in the shape of a cross rather than a rectangle, this architecture made it possible to place more than the number of vice presidents who wanted to have corner offices.

Nucor's average five-year earnings per employee exceeded that of Bathlem Steel by almost 10 times.

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Do you have a list of what you need to stop doing? Such a list is much more important than a list of what needs to be done.

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What did Walgreens respond in the midst of internet madness to Drugstore.com's lightning-fast growth? “- We are a company that crawls first, then goes and only then runs.”

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For business schools, Nucor has become a textbook example of a company that has crossed out all old norms through the use of new technologies, and the head of the company, in an interview, does not even mention technology among the five most important factors that made it possible to succeed in the transition from good to great.

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It's like in Daytona 500 racing: the main factor in the victory is not the car, but the pilot and his team.

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Technology is an accelerator, not a cause. Technology is the strongest potential development stimulator.

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Think the most important thing to start first? Laptop computers were manufactured by companies that no longer exist today.

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Great companies never talked about retaliatory measures and never defined their strategy as a response to the actions of other market participants.

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The most advanced technologies developed by companies that have achieved outstanding results, given free to competitors, will still not be able to provide them with similar results.

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Flywheel effect - a huge force lies in the process of successive improvements.

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When I think about companies that have achieved outstanding results, I always have one word in my head - consistency.

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When pushing a giant flywheel, it takes a huge amount of energy to move it. Then, pushing in one direction for a long time and persistently, you accelerate the flywheel. Then comes the moment when the accumulated energy begins to work for you.

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Over the years, people have the impression that Wall-Mart is ... just a good idea that suddenly became successful. But ... this success rests on everything that we have done since 1945 ... and, as with most "unexpected successes", the preparation process took twenty years.

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"Packard Law": no company can increase its turnover faster than the growth of its ability to hire the right people who can ensure its development.

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There is no “right” value system. No matter what values ​​you choose, there will always be a successful company that relies on completely different principles.

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The point is not what value system you have, but whether it is there, whether you know it, whether you build your activity based on it, whether you maintain it over time.

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It’s better to make a watch than to constantly say how much time.

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Great doesn't mean big. Size doesn't matter at all.

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Why become great?

Firstly, because creating something great is no more difficult than creating something good. Creating a great company involves less effort and even less work.

Well, the second answer ... "I think ... it's just because I like what I do"

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If you are not interested in what we are doing, look for another activity.

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People want to be at the spinning flywheel, they want to be in the winning team, they want to belong to a strong culture.

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Not everyone can be above average, but the desire to turn good into great is no more tedious process than vegetation.

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If you have to ask, “why should we try to make it great? Isn't success enough? ”Means, most likely, you are not busy with your own business.

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When all the elements are found and connected together, not only your work becomes outstanding, but also your own life.

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It is impossible to live a great life if it is meaningless. And it is very difficult to find the meaning of life, having meaningless work.