Book Review: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't

Jim Collins, also the co-author of Built To Last, spent 5 years analyzing what separates good companies from great companies and good managers from great managers. The result is the bestseller Good to Great.

This book is a study of companies that not only excel in what they do, but provide amazing returns on investors money. This book is about the steps the people who lead good companies take to make them great.

Here are some key points from Good to Great.

1) Growth in most companies comes after years and years of trying to adapt to the marketplace and finding a niche while becoming something the employees and management believe in. The culture that arises is what often makes the company successful.

2) Great managers worry more about getting good people rather than having a flawless business strategy. Once great managers have the employees they want, then they think about and plan business strategy.

3) Most great CEOs come from within the company's ranks, which makes sense because they are more familiar with the company's ins and outs and the culture of the company than would anyone hired from the outside. This is also a good motivational tool--if employees know they have a shot at the top spot, they'll want to get there. Employees will often see an executive brought in by management as an outsider

4) Executives want a challenging, rewarding workplace more than they want large salaries. A large salary may get an employee to come aboard, but it won't make them stay. Executives want to believe in the company and what it does.

Good to Great is a great book for anyone who leads others in any kind of business, whether it is ten people or a huge multinational corporation.

Learn more about Good to Great. (links to Amazon.com)