I have not lived Jim’s life, so very difficult for me to be in his shoes to know what drove him to his point in life to derive such strong convictions about his work. With that humble sympathies towards Jim, I write this critic.
A film critic friend selected 100 grosser top Hollywood movies and after studying them for 10 years with the help of the most high-tech movie analytical software, interviewing directors, producers and key crew members of films, and comparing them with 100 biggest flops; he came with a book - a 100% guarantee formula for “10 keys on how to make a Hollywood Blockbuster”. If you think that someone can make a Hollywood blockbuster following the 10 keys, then this book is surely for you to read. If not, than you may like to read this review.
Even though this book was published in October 2001, seven years back, with more than two million copies sold worldwide, and very highly recommended by most business and management pundits – I had never heard about this book until, one day my boss walks by our team in the office, with the book in his hand and gave rave reviews of how wonderful piece of work this is. We as a team, heard him and may be, had forgotten about it after a few days. After a week our boss in the middle of a group meeting, puts his bag up on the table and pulls out copies of this book to gift each member of the team. A very warm and loving gesture from our boss touched me deeply. I took the opportunity to bring back the book the next day to request his personal hand written compliments for me on its first page. He wrote – “With Warm Regards eagerness to share thoughts…” and that was inspired me to write the review of this book.
Good to Great – by Jim Collins.
I Google[1] - Jim Collins and Good to Great - in Google Book Search, and there are 10 listed book reviews, all positive except one by Rob May[2]. There is also a basic web site of the author James Collins[3], and there is an interview on YouTube of Jim Collins by Charlie Rose[4] - impressive to hear him talk, present his book and management concepts. I found him articulate, smart and one who can give a salesperson run for its money. The best collection of reviews[5] of this book is available at Amazon.com[6].
James C. Collins is an American, majored in mathematical sciences and MBA from Stanford. He had a rocky career – he did not fit anywhere – a very short stint at McKingsey and HP, managing his wife’s triathlon career, and a software company on managing health and fitness, says it all. His entrepreneur skills may not have hooked him an upward career but it landed him teaching Entrepreneurship at Stanford. He could not stand the political atmosphere at Stanford and founded a management laboratory in Colorado, USA.
Jim Collins likes to call himself as a student and a teacher of enduring great companies, but to outside world he is more regarded as a management consultant and a writer. He is an avid rock climber[7] and with his friend and mentor Stanford University Professor Jerry Porras had written his first book as co-author ‘Built to Last’. It was the joint publication that really grounded Jim on comforting territory that lead to his ‘curiosity’ potent to explore this question – “Good to Great – Why some companies make a leap…and other don’t”[8].
The book has taken 5-7 years to research. Jim hired a team of researchers[9] to look at 1435 American Fortune 500 companies’ data from 1965 till 1995, and after four levels of sifting, cut the list to 11 companies who have consistently shown high stock returns and compared them with direct comparable companies and unsustainable companies. The team interviewed 86 executives from these 11 companies and deduced seven principles of “Good to Great” companies:
1. Level 5 leadership: Leaders with personal humility and professional will
2. First who, then what: Hire the right people and remove weak people
3. Confront the brutal facts: Face most difficult facts and situations upfront
4. Hedgehog concept: Be best at what you are best at – core competence
5. A culture of discipline: Build culture of discipline through commitment & freedom
6. Technology accelerator: Use only those technologies that fit the company’s concept
7. The Fly Wheel and Doom Loop: No revolutionary steps, just small consistent effort
The book has nine chapters, one epilogue[10], eight appendices[11] and notes for each chapter.
Now my take on it:
While staring at the red book cover, the first thing that came to my mind was – who will pick up this book to read? Will those be the ones who think they are ‘Good’ but has the potential of being ‘Great’? Or those who think there is some wonder steps in the book like “5-6-7... Steps to happiness, success, riches…!” Surely, with the current title I would not have even stopped for a millisecond to fix my glance on the shelves of the book shop display.
But the title seems to be apt for urbanized, mostly metropolitan and educated human generation – who has this immense urge to hook on to some current fad, a quick-fix solution to be something else – the easy way – especially the Americans and those around the globe following American culture. I do not know why? May be some Americans can throw some more light on this psychological phobia? Every other year we see an emergence of such writings.
Anyone who knows a little bit about research will tell you that the research that is talked about and presented (every given opportunity) by Jim as a scientific methodology is not a systematic research or a scientific methodology by any standards. Outlining research steps during / after research is like I saying that select as many non-fiction books published in US since 1995 with red cover, now remove books that are published before year 2000 AD, remove books that are sold less than two million, remove books that are not categorized as number one best-sellers and you will be left with one book on hand, i.e. Good to Great. Is this scientific? Surely not, but illusionary! Like a magician Jim persistently and tediously showcases the science behind his work just to elude readers in a make believe scenario that is not real.
It is important for readers to know that research done by Jim and principles derived by Jim are two separate sets, which Jim is trying hard to sell as a methodology of deductive one. One key example in palmistry is palm lines and future life predictions - are they related or independent sets? In India, every nook and corner you will find a palmist like Jim, who will proclaim to have studied 10,000 palms to support his claims on your successful future life predictions.
Six simple observations:
First, Jim does not have any hypothesis to test, second, nor does he establish any co-relation on the principle and the findings. Third, surprisingly Jim does not even present all the findings, and fourth, seems to be selective in choosing and presenting findings that show negation of some pre-conceived thoughts of his and his team. Fifth, most of his principles are presented as substantiating his claim emerging out of an enlightening discussion, talk (walk) or reading or single sentence that Jim found interesting. (Same things palmist do of quoting names of people who match palm lines and life fate) Sixth, if you read the principles – did not you know them earlier? Jim does not say anything new, but presents old wine in new bottle of jargons colored with his understanding of scientific research haze.
These six key observations will surely make any person with little common-sense, suspicious. It made me. My assumption is that there are more than 90 per cent of Jim principles generated from his mind and not as deduction from these studies. Like an American talkative salesperson Jim uses this research as larger than life portray, than what it actually is. Surely he is a good at it.
The book is filled his principles whose wording imbibe paradox, irony, extreme, contradictory, contrary, shocking, surprising, unbelievable etc. and Jim does not care to explain any of them. Every concept of Jim is not even half cooked. Jim also keeps on harping one word again and again, that leaders should have understanding, or develop understanding – and that is such a loose guidance. Anything that does not work, could be blamed on “may be you did not have proper understanding” and the reader of the book would struggle to get the understanding from the book which is elusive in the first place.
Honestly, it was really (extremely) difficult for me read this book, because (with full sympathy to Jim’s efforts) it was full of non-sense. Many a times while reading it, I felt repulsive, contemptible and worthless spending my time on it. I feel sad for this world and people who are praising such books. Most of them are or would be leaders. Mostly, wrong/ weak person would read this book, and all wrong / weak persons (who should be removed from the company bus) would not realize that they are the wrong person on the bus. They would read this book and try to remove everyone else except themselves – as Jim Collins says - a paradox and irony!
I strongly think that Jim has spend more time to bring credibility to his thoughts via this research rather than allowing the research to deduce the principles. How hard Jim tries, but he would never know the real secrets behind successful companies (unsuccessful himself in running small businesses). Jim Collins may write another 5 to 10 books in his life-time, but I strongly believe that one day Jim will get it in the end because right now he does not have required conceptual clarity, scientific rigor or humility to understand and respect life’s complexities. He covers that by not being transparent and apt in his professional work and that is why he becomes clumsy in flowering jargons around and in thin air. There lies his failure. I hope he has some deeper sense to understand this.
In this world, till there are people who can not resist indulging in enthusiasm of running after fads and picking books like “5 days to become a millionaire”, “4 things to do to find true love and happiness” and “How to become leaders” etc.; such books will sell like hot cake in today’s confused times, and people like Jim may feel intelligent, sober and merrier with fame and gain.
Last point - I find every other line in the book pretentious. If I really sit to write line by line, concept by concept critic – it may result in a similar 300 page book. I do not want to spend more time on “Good to Great”, not worth it!!
Just for sake of information: 8 out of 11 companies of Good to Great are on a decline or have gone busted during this first decade of 21st century.
[1] Fearing dilution and potential loss of trademark, Google has attempted to discourage use of the word as a verb and In October 25, 2006, Google sent a plea to the public requesting that "you should please only use 'Google' when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services.
[2] http://www.businesspundit.com/why-good-to-great-isnt-very-good/
[3] http://www.jimcollins.com/
[4] http://youtube.com/watch?v=3bR2Jlgg71Q
[5] Amazon website has 665 reviews of this book, from which 67% of those reviewers rate the book with 5 stars and just 3.7% rate this book with 1 star.
[6] http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Companies-Leap-Others/dp/0066620996/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209459946&sr=1-1
[7] Jim Collins ran a rock climbing school to support himself after graduating
[8] In 2005, Jim Collins also published a monograph ‘Good to Great and the Social Sector’ with less intensive research and without much commercial success
[9] Young researchers without experience and the team also kept on changing
[10] Epilogue consists of 17 frequently asked questions (FAQ)
[11] The appendices 3, 4, 6, and 7 are missing (looks intentionally deleted) from the final publication of the book. So four appendix 1, 2, 5, and 8 consists of eight sub-appendices.
A film critic friend selected 100 grosser top Hollywood movies and after studying them for 10 years with the help of the most high-tech movie analytical software, interviewing directors, producers and key crew members of films, and comparing them with 100 biggest flops; he came with a book - a 100% guarantee formula for “10 keys on how to make a Hollywood Blockbuster”. If you think that someone can make a Hollywood blockbuster following the 10 keys, then this book is surely for you to read. If not, than you may like to read this review.
Even though this book was published in October 2001, seven years back, with more than two million copies sold worldwide, and very highly recommended by most business and management pundits – I had never heard about this book until, one day my boss walks by our team in the office, with the book in his hand and gave rave reviews of how wonderful piece of work this is. We as a team, heard him and may be, had forgotten about it after a few days. After a week our boss in the middle of a group meeting, puts his bag up on the table and pulls out copies of this book to gift each member of the team. A very warm and loving gesture from our boss touched me deeply. I took the opportunity to bring back the book the next day to request his personal hand written compliments for me on its first page. He wrote – “With Warm Regards eagerness to share thoughts…” and that was inspired me to write the review of this book.
Good to Great – by Jim Collins.
I Google[1] - Jim Collins and Good to Great - in Google Book Search, and there are 10 listed book reviews, all positive except one by Rob May[2]. There is also a basic web site of the author James Collins[3], and there is an interview on YouTube of Jim Collins by Charlie Rose[4] - impressive to hear him talk, present his book and management concepts. I found him articulate, smart and one who can give a salesperson run for its money. The best collection of reviews[5] of this book is available at Amazon.com[6].
James C. Collins is an American, majored in mathematical sciences and MBA from Stanford. He had a rocky career – he did not fit anywhere – a very short stint at McKingsey and HP, managing his wife’s triathlon career, and a software company on managing health and fitness, says it all. His entrepreneur skills may not have hooked him an upward career but it landed him teaching Entrepreneurship at Stanford. He could not stand the political atmosphere at Stanford and founded a management laboratory in Colorado, USA.
Jim Collins likes to call himself as a student and a teacher of enduring great companies, but to outside world he is more regarded as a management consultant and a writer. He is an avid rock climber[7] and with his friend and mentor Stanford University Professor Jerry Porras had written his first book as co-author ‘Built to Last’. It was the joint publication that really grounded Jim on comforting territory that lead to his ‘curiosity’ potent to explore this question – “Good to Great – Why some companies make a leap…and other don’t”[8].
The book has taken 5-7 years to research. Jim hired a team of researchers[9] to look at 1435 American Fortune 500 companies’ data from 1965 till 1995, and after four levels of sifting, cut the list to 11 companies who have consistently shown high stock returns and compared them with direct comparable companies and unsustainable companies. The team interviewed 86 executives from these 11 companies and deduced seven principles of “Good to Great” companies:
1. Level 5 leadership: Leaders with personal humility and professional will
2. First who, then what: Hire the right people and remove weak people
3. Confront the brutal facts: Face most difficult facts and situations upfront
4. Hedgehog concept: Be best at what you are best at – core competence
5. A culture of discipline: Build culture of discipline through commitment & freedom
6. Technology accelerator: Use only those technologies that fit the company’s concept
7. The Fly Wheel and Doom Loop: No revolutionary steps, just small consistent effort
The book has nine chapters, one epilogue[10], eight appendices[11] and notes for each chapter.
Now my take on it:
While staring at the red book cover, the first thing that came to my mind was – who will pick up this book to read? Will those be the ones who think they are ‘Good’ but has the potential of being ‘Great’? Or those who think there is some wonder steps in the book like “5-6-7... Steps to happiness, success, riches…!” Surely, with the current title I would not have even stopped for a millisecond to fix my glance on the shelves of the book shop display.
But the title seems to be apt for urbanized, mostly metropolitan and educated human generation – who has this immense urge to hook on to some current fad, a quick-fix solution to be something else – the easy way – especially the Americans and those around the globe following American culture. I do not know why? May be some Americans can throw some more light on this psychological phobia? Every other year we see an emergence of such writings.
Anyone who knows a little bit about research will tell you that the research that is talked about and presented (every given opportunity) by Jim as a scientific methodology is not a systematic research or a scientific methodology by any standards. Outlining research steps during / after research is like I saying that select as many non-fiction books published in US since 1995 with red cover, now remove books that are published before year 2000 AD, remove books that are sold less than two million, remove books that are not categorized as number one best-sellers and you will be left with one book on hand, i.e. Good to Great. Is this scientific? Surely not, but illusionary! Like a magician Jim persistently and tediously showcases the science behind his work just to elude readers in a make believe scenario that is not real.
It is important for readers to know that research done by Jim and principles derived by Jim are two separate sets, which Jim is trying hard to sell as a methodology of deductive one. One key example in palmistry is palm lines and future life predictions - are they related or independent sets? In India, every nook and corner you will find a palmist like Jim, who will proclaim to have studied 10,000 palms to support his claims on your successful future life predictions.
Six simple observations:
First, Jim does not have any hypothesis to test, second, nor does he establish any co-relation on the principle and the findings. Third, surprisingly Jim does not even present all the findings, and fourth, seems to be selective in choosing and presenting findings that show negation of some pre-conceived thoughts of his and his team. Fifth, most of his principles are presented as substantiating his claim emerging out of an enlightening discussion, talk (walk) or reading or single sentence that Jim found interesting. (Same things palmist do of quoting names of people who match palm lines and life fate) Sixth, if you read the principles – did not you know them earlier? Jim does not say anything new, but presents old wine in new bottle of jargons colored with his understanding of scientific research haze.
These six key observations will surely make any person with little common-sense, suspicious. It made me. My assumption is that there are more than 90 per cent of Jim principles generated from his mind and not as deduction from these studies. Like an American talkative salesperson Jim uses this research as larger than life portray, than what it actually is. Surely he is a good at it.
The book is filled his principles whose wording imbibe paradox, irony, extreme, contradictory, contrary, shocking, surprising, unbelievable etc. and Jim does not care to explain any of them. Every concept of Jim is not even half cooked. Jim also keeps on harping one word again and again, that leaders should have understanding, or develop understanding – and that is such a loose guidance. Anything that does not work, could be blamed on “may be you did not have proper understanding” and the reader of the book would struggle to get the understanding from the book which is elusive in the first place.
Honestly, it was really (extremely) difficult for me read this book, because (with full sympathy to Jim’s efforts) it was full of non-sense. Many a times while reading it, I felt repulsive, contemptible and worthless spending my time on it. I feel sad for this world and people who are praising such books. Most of them are or would be leaders. Mostly, wrong/ weak person would read this book, and all wrong / weak persons (who should be removed from the company bus) would not realize that they are the wrong person on the bus. They would read this book and try to remove everyone else except themselves – as Jim Collins says - a paradox and irony!
I strongly think that Jim has spend more time to bring credibility to his thoughts via this research rather than allowing the research to deduce the principles. How hard Jim tries, but he would never know the real secrets behind successful companies (unsuccessful himself in running small businesses). Jim Collins may write another 5 to 10 books in his life-time, but I strongly believe that one day Jim will get it in the end because right now he does not have required conceptual clarity, scientific rigor or humility to understand and respect life’s complexities. He covers that by not being transparent and apt in his professional work and that is why he becomes clumsy in flowering jargons around and in thin air. There lies his failure. I hope he has some deeper sense to understand this.
In this world, till there are people who can not resist indulging in enthusiasm of running after fads and picking books like “5 days to become a millionaire”, “4 things to do to find true love and happiness” and “How to become leaders” etc.; such books will sell like hot cake in today’s confused times, and people like Jim may feel intelligent, sober and merrier with fame and gain.
Last point - I find every other line in the book pretentious. If I really sit to write line by line, concept by concept critic – it may result in a similar 300 page book. I do not want to spend more time on “Good to Great”, not worth it!!
Just for sake of information: 8 out of 11 companies of Good to Great are on a decline or have gone busted during this first decade of 21st century.
[1] Fearing dilution and potential loss of trademark, Google has attempted to discourage use of the word as a verb and In October 25, 2006, Google sent a plea to the public requesting that "you should please only use 'Google' when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services.
[2] http://www.businesspundit.com/why-good-to-great-isnt-very-good/
[3] http://www.jimcollins.com/
[4] http://youtube.com/watch?v=3bR2Jlgg71Q
[5] Amazon website has 665 reviews of this book, from which 67% of those reviewers rate the book with 5 stars and just 3.7% rate this book with 1 star.
[6] http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Companies-Leap-Others/dp/0066620996/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209459946&sr=1-1
[7] Jim Collins ran a rock climbing school to support himself after graduating
[8] In 2005, Jim Collins also published a monograph ‘Good to Great and the Social Sector’ with less intensive research and without much commercial success
[9] Young researchers without experience and the team also kept on changing
[10] Epilogue consists of 17 frequently asked questions (FAQ)
[11] The appendices 3, 4, 6, and 7 are missing (looks intentionally deleted) from the final publication of the book. So four appendix 1, 2, 5, and 8 consists of eight sub-appendices.
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