Ken provides a mini book report on what is considered the greatest business book of all time. Going deep into the book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Other’s Don’t by Jim Collins, he talks about the part on how to dominate in your business long term. He lays down the main thoughts by highlighting discipline. Having disciplined people in your business keeps everything right on track.
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Listen to the podcast here:
Good To Great
I have not done an episode like these next three episodes in over a year. However, the comments and feedback I got the last time I did something like this has caused me to want to do this again. I’m going to do a quick series here, it’s actually a book report. I am in the middle of a debate with multiple people on the book, Good to Great by Jim Collins. For many years, many people said that is the greatest business book of all time. It mirrors and models some of the greatest companies, yet when we went through both the last six-year recession and the tech bubble, people begin to start pecking at that book. It’s only then in the last couple of years where economy has corrected in the US that people got introspective of Jim Collins’ work. Now, the momentum is shifting back to, yet these principles are some of the best business principles in the world in history.
“Good is the nemesis of great.” Click To TweetI want to bring a couple of things to people’s attention. First, if you want to get a little teaser to see the gravity of what is covered in this famous book, I would start with WikiSummaries. Once you read WikiSummaries maybe three times and you think you that get the talking points of each chapter, I want you to go to PaulMinors.org. He does a slightly different summary, CliffsNotes version. There is an actual book summary in audio format. I don’t always do this, like Brian Tracy stuff. I never recommend somebody go to the summaries, but in this case, the topics of the book are so deep, important, and long-term. You might want to bite in a little bit at a time. It is a long, thick book, but in my world, it’s not optional.
Number one, I’m going to summarize only one of the chapters. This book is all about people. The concept is in one of the early chapters, if you want to dominate long-term, if you go into every single company small, medium, and large, the ones that have been around and continually change, adapt, and grow. Jim Collins can pretty close to prove the following principle is in play. Number one, they have disciplined people. Number two, those disciplined people have disciplined thought. Meaning there is time and the schedule to think. They have meetings where they sit down and look at the prior meetings’ information. They think about what was put in play, they review the results, and make new decisions.
The first thing is they have disciplined people. They’re disciplined in all areas of their life, disciplined people run those companies. Those disciplined people make the discipline of thinking and having very critical executive meetings and they put certain things in action. Number three, they take disciplined action. They set disciplined things in motion. When you read this chapter, it is literally, as a business owner, filleting yourself open. I remember every time I read the book I go, “I’m not doing that.” “Not doing that.” “Need to start doing that.” It’s like putting you on the cross every single time. Number one, this is a mini microscopic book report of one tiny chapter of what many people call, “The greatest business book of all time,” Good to Great by Jim Collins.
One of the greatest things that hold you back from being great is when you get good at something. Click To TweetI realized the chapter that I’m talking about, disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. It’s the first chapter where it said, “Good is the nemesis of great.” If you want to be great, one of the greatest things that is going to hold you back is when you get good at something. When you get good at something, as a company, pride gets in the way. You start getting satisfied and satiated. He explains that so well. I’m going to keep this short. For episode 241, it’s a little microcosm of Jim’s great book, Good to Great. I hope this helps. Take care.
Important Links:
- Good to Great
- WikiSummaries– Good to Great Summary
- PaulMinors.org– Good to Great Summary
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