The funny thing about books is, if you let them sit long enough before cracking them back open, sometimes you find that they have changed.
The first time I read Good to Great by Jim Collins was while I was getting my MBA at night while working full time. It had just been released in 2001 and there was a lot of talk about it on campus. I was consumed with the business terminology, measures of success, and principles of enterprise leadership.
Then 20 years passed. I spent the entire time in business, first as part of a large enterprise, then as part of a tech startup, then as an entrepreneur.
When I pulled the book off the shelf earlier this month, I thought I remembered what it was about - but I was shocked by how different it was. All of the business jargon had been replaced by focus on how much people can achieve when they find meaning in their work.
Good to Great identified 11 publicly traded companies that managed to achieve cumulative stock returns of nearly 7X the market in the 15 years after their transition point: were Abbott, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreens, Wells Fargo.
They were researched and analyzed, looking for trends among their leadership, application of technology, company culture, and mission. Even though two decades have passed, a lot of the original wisdom still holds true.
Technology
In 2001, technology meant the Internet, nothing like the automation and AI we have today. But as much as that has changed, nothing else really has.
For instance, Collins wrote, “Technology-induced change is nothing new. The real question is not, What is the role of technology? Rather, the real question is, How do good-to-great organizations think differently about technology?” (p. 147)
The other key idea is that technology can accelerate momentum, but it can’t create it. I’m sure that will come as a relief to anyone worried about losing their job to automation, and be frustrating to anyone who works for a tech firm.
Rolling out tech doesn’t do anything on its own. In fact, the team found that it was pioneering applications of technology, and alignment with the value proposition, not the technology itself, that played a part in the good to great journey.
As we think about introducing technology in 2025 and beyond, our focus should be on how it allows us to better achieve our mission, rather than acting out of the fear of being left behind or a desire to keep up with the Joneses.
Culture
Company culture was another of the important differentiators of the Good to Great companies. They exhibited excellence, accountability, toughness, and discipline. Culture was also closely related to the company’s scope and plans for growth… not doing anything that didn’t align with their core vision and the mission of the business.
It is common to talk about functional silos, but the Good to Great companies took a different approach. They avoided hierarchical division. Collins included a story in the book about Nucor making the decision that everyone in their facilities (except the safety supervisors) would wear the same color hard hat. At first, this caused some upset. A higher ranking colored hat was a status symbol, and this ‘perk’ was being taken away, but over time it led to status being associated with performance, not title.
Culture contributes to greatness through sheer will. “Everyone would like to be the best, but most organizations lack the discipline to figure out with egoless clarity what they can be the best at and the will to do whatever it takes to turn that potential into reality.” (p. 128)
Professional Meaning
Not to be overlooked, is Collins’s belief that finding meaningful work has a lot to do with how successful we are.
“But there is a second answer to the question of why greatness, one that is at the very heart of what motivated us to undertake this huge project in the first place: the search for meaning, or more precisely, the search for meaningful work.” And a few lines later… “If you’re engaged in work that you love and care about, for whatever reason, then the question needs no answer. The question is not why, but how.” (p. 208-209)
Jim Collins’s project was to identify and understand companies that went from Good to Great, but in the process he uncovered the characteristics of teams that have the capacity and dedication to make it possible. And that potential resides within every one of us. All we have to do is find work that holds meaning for us and join a team that shares our passion.
