Good to Great, published in March , is actually a narrative presentation of the quest of Jim Collins and his team as they conducted a research study regarding company performance which rooted from a single question: Can a good company become a great company and, if so, how? Great articles and essays by the world's best journalists and writers Great Articles & Essays: Interesting Articles to Read Online The best short articles, nonfiction and essays from around the net - interesting articles and essays on every subject, all free to read online Dec 07, · Remove from my list. The non-fiction novel of my choosing to read and elaborate on was Good to Great, written by Jim Collins. The book was first published in after five years of extensive research which began in Good to Great is a business strategies book that examines the transformation of 11 companies of a year period in which they
Great Articles & Essays: Interesting Articles to Read Online
Utilising a research team to do systemic quantitative and qualitative research of thousands of companies, the books intention is to identify exactly how good to great essay companies become great and outperform other companies in their specific business sector progressively and consistently. His team underwent a rigorous process of constantly interrogating and questioning certain hypotheses in order to expunge the main themes and trends behind what makes a great company, and, good to great essay a series of colourful anecdotes and metaphors, attempts to highlight exactly what companies need to do in order to be great. He looks specifically at 11 companies that, in terms of outperforming their competitors on a consistent and regular basis, are great companies.
It is a surprising set of choices, but based entirely on objective analysis based on growth rates and wealth in comparison to competing companies in a similar market. He looks at Abbott Laboratories, which outperformed other companies in good to great essay similar field at a rate of 4 to 1, Fannie Mae, which outperformed other companies at 7. Thus, by distinguishing the great companies and analysing them in a systemic and rigorous way, Collins hoped to dissect exactly what patterns emerged and how these companies correlate in their business models and philosophies, reaching conclusions about how the company ends up not only being great, but also being consistently great over a period of decades. The book acts as a prequel to Jim Collins other book, Built to Last, which he touches on in this work.
Although this is contentious, he argues that a great company can survive any number of changes to its personnel, because the people who work for the companies in question, are screened as the right people. There have been many instances of a company that has folded due to the resignation or at times the deliberate sabotage of a company prior to the departure of a big CEO. He also talks about companies that have emerged from a crisis. When this is combined with other factors, such as the employment of the right people, the appropriate use of technology, and in working towards specific and achievable factors for success, Collins argues that the traditional difficulties associated with managing and making a great company dissipate.
First, Collins argues that it is not simply the case that the people make a business successful, but more that the right people make a business successful. In it, he uses the example of the steel company, Nucor. With Nucor, good to great essay, the company spent a great deal of time hiring and firing the workers based on their abilities to produce steel, in the end whittling down the workforce and upping the wages, making Nucor one of the most prestigious steel companies to work for. He extends this philosophy to leadership. It exists in a hierarchy of capabilities. He argues that a great leader is one who combines deep personal humility with intense professional will.
He draws the example of Darwin Smith from Kimberly-Clark. He suggests that his selfless channelling of his ego and his ambition led to the creation of the Kimberly-Clark empire. Upon receiving the post of CEO in the failing company, Darwin Smith made the decision to sell the paper mills upon which Kimberly-Clark were solely dependent on, in order to branch out into the service sector. However, he makes the distinction between what makes a great CEO and what the standard media perceive as a great CEO. The CEOs of all of the companies listed are relatively unknown to the mainstream press. When the manager of Gillette was printed on the front of the New York Times good to great essay a giant razor and looking like a Greek God, he had a heart attack and died instantly.
He argues that enormous salaries and changing personnel seem relatively irrelevant because there is no correlation between high pay for executives, and successful companies. However, good to great essay, the term Level 5 leader remains vague, only pulled together by a series of fairly loose concepts about selflessness and virtue, combined with a ruthless and commanding commitment to the values of the company and of being a success. Collins also utilises another term, which he coins The Stockdale Paradox. It is simply a personality duality that occurs in the mindset of great companies, which focuses on first, a stark realisation of the problems in hand, with an, at times, good to great essay, brutal realisation that the company is doing something gravely wrong, and has to change radically in order to succeed in becoming great.
Secondly, it is a stoicism and an unwavering faith in the companies eventual success. This is a powerful concept, and together, confidence and self-scrutiny combine to make a great company. Salaries, stock value, rate of growth and other tangible factors to determine a company remain a footnote when compared to the concept of hiring the right people. It can easily be argued that a company will try to hire the right person for the job, because it would be logical to do so. The book then focuses on how a company succeeds, good to great essay, and, he argues, this is dependent on looking starkly at the brutal facts, but never losing track of the goal in mind. Level 5 leaders embody this characteristic, because, as well as possessing a total, passionate commitment to the company, they are also self-deprecating and humble, and, whenever something with the company is wrong, they see themselves as personally accountable for the problem.
Drawing distinction between a hedgehog and a fox, he argues that while the fox scurries around, constantly and listlessly searching for a purpose, good to great essay, the hedgehog is defined by its concept. This is elaborated by his three intersecting circles, in which he suggests that a company needs to have a defined, solid, and simple aim in order to succeed and become a great company. The Hedgehog Concept is achieved when this aim is identified and can, he argues, take many years. The three circles state the following. The first concept is to define what the company can be the best good to great essay the world at. In this, the example of Wells Fargo good to great essay drawn upon to elaborate the metaphor.
Wells Fargo is a financial services company, who faced great competition from other banks in the International sector. By identifying what the company could be best at, which was focussing purely on becoming good to great essay best bank in West America, the good to great essay objective of The Hedgehog Concept was achieved. Secondly, it is important for the company to remain profitable. Thirdly, the company has to determine exactly what it is passionate about, good to great essay. For instance, Collins argues that Wells Fargo, by identifying a goal, meant that the right people occupying the various roles were also deeply passionate about becoming the best in that particular market.
He argues that, by facing up to their inability to be successful in certain fields, and by limiting the company aim to a single, easily identifiable trait, then the company was automatically driven by a passion to achieve that goal. In this section, he uses the metaphor of a flywheel. If the flywheel is constantly pushing in different directions, then the original intentions of the company are underwhelmed. The egg sits there, doing nothing for years and years, and nobody takes notice of the egg until it hatches, and suddenly it is seen as an overnight success.
Also, the metaphor of the flywheel is used as the device that gathers momentum gradually over a period of years. Moreover, he believes that growth should occur naturally, and when feasible. He equates this to Walmart, and the gradual process of building a profitable set of stores, using distinct and achievable aims, and pushing consistently on the flywheel and allowing all personnel in the company to push in the right direction and with equal passion and veracity, were a hallmark of the astonishing success of the Walmart empire. It is unfortunate, good to great essay, he suggests, that companies tend to utilise technology in the sense that it will offer them solutions to a problem that will remain afterwards.
The success of a business depends on the implementation of the right technology at the right time. In order for the company to succeed, technology cannot simply be implemented, but must be used with a distinct purpose in mind. On the contrary, many listless companies who jump in at the deep end of the technological pool end up sinking. So, Collins argues that good to great essay is important for the success of the company, but only as a secondary means for promoting the primary aim, as identified by The Hedgehog Concept. That is the job of the personnel of the company.
Overall, Good to Great offers a few interesting glimpses into what makes a good company into a great company, and then has a sustained period of growth that can last for decades, good to great essay. However, the book remains problematic, insofar as it tends to cross the threshold between what is essentially a scientific, business studies manual, documenting with scientific and objective precision what exactly the quantifiable elements of what makes a company great, and a self-help book. Good to great essay instance, as a primary means, Collins argues that the right people make the company great. Although this seems obvious, it fails to help or assist anybody trying to good to great essay their companies great themselves, good to great essay, simply because the concept behind it is too vague, good to great essay.
Collins describes the level 5 leader as self-effacing, but also stern and resilient under pressure. Although some distinction is drawn between these companies with the level 5 leaders in charge, and other companies with egotistical leaders in charge, good to great essay, that tend to implode following the resignation of the leader, it fails to draw comparisons with companies that may have these kinds of level 5 leaders, or could certainly be described as such, but for some reason, still fail to succeed. The analysis, by concentrating good to great essay a handful of companies in a qualitative analysis, drawing upon a single comparison company, fails to be convincing in its delivery.
Although a great deal of analysis was done, the comparative analysis in the book remains insubstantial. The concepts that are sketched out in the book are nicely and elegantly drawn out with extended metaphors and examples, but, good to great essay, conceptually and terminologically, the book lacks a certain depth of analysis to prove the points. Overall, however flawed the book may be, the concepts elaborated upon in turn shed light upon and helps to purge the ghosts of certain myths about exactly what makes a great company great. Want to get an original essay on this topic? Good to Great, by Jim Collins. com, Jun 26, Accessed April 18, comJun Order paper like this. Did you like this example? Type your requirements and get professional help.
Good to great essay 10 days left. Number of pages. Email Invalid email. A professional writer will make a clear, mistake-free paper for you! Stuck on ideas? Struggling with a concept? Get help with your assigment. Leave your email and we will send a sample to you. Email Send me the sample. Please check your inbox. Interested in this topic? Professional experts can help. Ask expert for help. Please indicate where to send you the sample. Didn't find the paper that you were looking for? Any subject. Pay if satisfied.
How to write a good essay
, time: 8:24Good to Great, by Jim Collins - Free Essay Example - Words | blogger.com
Jun 26, · Good to Great, by Jim Collins. Good to Great: Critically Summarize In Good to Great, by Jim Collins, a number of distinctions are drawn between what distinguishes a “good” company from a “great” company. Utilising a research team to do systemic quantitative and qualitative research of thousands of companies, the books intention is to identify exactly how Great articles and essays by the world's best journalists and writers Great Articles & Essays: Interesting Articles to Read Online The best short articles, nonfiction and essays from around the net - interesting articles and essays on every subject, all free to read online Essay On Good To Great. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap, and Others Don’t Report by David Smith How can a good company become a great one? This is the question Jim Collins answers in his book, Good to Great. To find the answer, Collins assembled a team of researchers and set out on a 5-year study of 1, established companies
No comments:
Post a Comment