Good to Great

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“At være fremragende er ikke et spørgsmål om omstændigheder. Det viser sig, at det i høj grad handler om bevidste valg.”

Jim Collins, 2001

Kort om bogen

Konklusionerne fra Collins’ forskningsprojekt kommunikeres i en model med 7 temaer, som hvert udgør et kapitel:

• Level 5 Leadership (Level 5 ledelse)
• First Who… Then What (Først hvem,… så hvad)
• Confront the Brutal Facts (Konfrontér de brutale kendsgerninger)
• Hedgehog Concept (Pindsvinekonceptet)
• A Culture of Discipline (En kultur præget af disciplin)
• Technology Accelerators (Teknologiacceleratorer)
• The Flywheel (Svinghjulet)

Temaerne hænger sammen kronologisk, og bogen hylder de “level 5 ledere” der førte an i de 11 virksomheder der udviklede sig fra good to great. Paradoksalt nok var disse ledere ofte mindre kendte end karismatiske ledere i nogle af de firmaer beskrives som “sammenligningsfirmaer”, altså nogle der lignede “good to great” firmaerne, men som ikke transformerede sig, og skabte “fremragende” resultater.

 

Mest relevante pointer i kontekst af transparent mødepraksis

I sammenhæng med transparent mødepraksis er det primært de første 5 temaer der peger på principper der også er relevante ift. transparent mødepraksis. De kommenteres herunder.

Level 5 Leadership (Level 5 ledelse)

“You can accomplish anything in life, provided you do not mind who gets the credit.”
Harry S. Truman

Den mest centrale pointe er at “level 5 ledere” var fokuseret på, og drevet af, at skabe resultater, ikke for sig selv, men for organisationen. Denne værdi og tilgang betød at de skabte en kultur, også i møderne, hvor det altid handlede om hvad der var bedst for organisationen.

Disse ledere havde karakter, og var ikke drevet af frygt. De var ikke bange for at blive udfordret på møderne.

“”Level 5” refers to five-level hierarchy of executive capabilities, with Level 5 at the top. Level 5 leaders embody a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will. They are ambitious, to be sure, but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves.”

 

First Who… Then What (Først hvem… så hvad)

“The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.”

Level 5 ledere er ydmyge og forstår at en strategi ikke kun skal leve og udvikles inde i deres egne hoveder, uanset hvor intelligente de er. Lederne skabte teams hvor der både var respekt for hinanden, og hvor man kunne være rygende uenige om centrale beslutninger. Og når beslutninger blev truffet, bakkede alle op om disse, fordi det var det bedste for organisationen.

“Good-to-great Management teams consist of people who debate vigorously in search for the best answers, yet who unify behind decisions, regardless of parochial interests.”

 

Confront the Brutal Facts (Konfrontér de brutale kendsgerninger)

“You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts. The good-to-great companies operated in accordance with this principle.”

I beretninger fra de 11 good-to-great organisationer beskrives en meget lidt politisk kultur, hvor sandheder blev bragt frem i lyset, bl.a. på møder, og man ikke var bange for at diskutere svære problemer. Formålet var ofte blot at forstå. På den måde undgik de at søsætte en masse forkerte projekter. Her ét eksempel:

“The company created a long-standing tradition of forums where people could stand up and tell senior executives what the company was doing wrong, shoving rocks with squiggly things in their faces, and saying, “Look! You’d better pay attention to this.”

When the executives were asked about their management team meetings during the transition era, they said that they spent much of the time “just trying to understand”.
The good-to-great leaders made particularly good use of informal meetings where they would meet with groups of managers and employees with no script, agenda, or set of action items to discuss.”

 

Hedgehog Concept (Pindsvinekonceptet)

“A Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles: 1; What you can be the best in the world at, 2: What drives your economic engine, and 3; What you are deeply passionate about.”

“A Hedgehog Concept requires a severe standard of excellence. It’s not just about building on strength and competence, but about understanding what your organization truly has the potential to be the very best at and sticking to it.”

Good-to-great organisationerne formåede at udvikle en konsistent forretningsmodel der kunne skaleres meget profitabelt. Det lykkedes fordi de udviklede en forståelse for hvor og hvordan virksomheden kunne være bedre end andre. Denne forståelse samlede virksomheden og var grundlaget for konkrete og mere kortsigtede strategier. I bogen fremhæves ”the council” (komitéen) som en struktur der blev benyttet i alle good-to-great organisationerne, til at udvikle hedgehog concept forståelse over tid. Se længere nede for citater ang. ”council”.

 

A Culture of Discipline (En kultur præget af disciplin)

“The good-to-great companies built a consistent system with clear constraints, but they also gave people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system. They hired self-disciplined people who didn’t need to be managed, and then managed the system, not the people.”

Som flere andre ledelsesbøger fremhæver, er ”alignment” og ”autonomy” ikke modsætninger. Dvs. good-to-great organisationerne udviklede systemer og strukturer der skulle guide de mange mennesker i en fælles retning, og indenfor disse systemer og strukturer fandtes en stor grad af autonomi, og frihed til at handle. På den måde skulle den enkelte leder ikke bruge tid på at micro-manage.

 

Forlag og link

Collins Business, 2001

Kan f.eks. købes på Saxo her.
(Dette er ikke et sponsoreret link)

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Yderligere citater i kronologisk rækkefølge

Herunder en længere række citater som kan give et hurtigt overblik over nogle af de vigtigste pointer i bogen.

1: Good is the Enemy of Great

• “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.” s.11
• “Yes, the world is changing, and will continue to do so. But that does not mean we should stop the search for timeless principles. Think of it this way: While the practices of engineering continually evolve and change, the laws of physics remain relatively fixed. I like to think of our work as a search for timeless principles – the enduring physics of great organizations – that will remain true and relevant no matter how the world changes around us. Yes, the specific application will change (the engineering), but certain immutable laws of organized human performance (the physics) will endure.” s.15
• “This book is not about the old economy. Nor is it about the new economy. It is not even about the companies you are reading about, or even about business per se. It is ultimately about one thing: the timeless principles of good to great. It’s about how you take a good organization and turn it into one that produces sustained great results.” s.15

 

2: Level 5 Leadership

• “You can accomplish anything in life, provided you do not mind who gets the credit.” Harry S. Truman” s.17
• “It is very important to grasp that Level 5 leadership is not just about humility and modesty. It is equally about ferocious resolve, an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the company great.” s.30
• “”Level 5” refers to five-level hierarchy of executive capabilities, with Level 5 at the top. Level 5 leaders embody a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will. They are ambitious, to be sure, but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves.” s.39

 

3: First Who… Then What

• “The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.” s.41
• “The weak general model produced a climate very different at Bank of America than the one at Wells Fargo. Whereas the Wells Fargo crew acted as a strong team of equal partners, ferociously debating eyeball-to-eyeball in search of the best answers, the Bank of America weak generals would wait for directions from above. Sam Armacost, who inherited the weak generals model, described the management climate: “I came away quite distressed from my first couple of management meetings. Not only couldn’t I get conflict, I couldn’t even get comment. They were all waiting to see which way the wind blew.”” s.43
• “Eckerd Corporation’s Strategy lay inside Jack Eckerd’s head, the primary guidance mechanism for Walgreens’ corporate strategy lay in the group dialogue and shared insights of the talented executive team.” s.46
• “Nucor Illustrates a key point. In determining “the right people”, the good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience.” s.51
• “The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake. The best people don’t need to be managed.” s.56
• “Every minute devoted to putting the proper person in the proper slot is worth weeks of time later.” Colman Mockler s.57
• “The good-to-great companies made a habit of putting their best people on their best opportunities, not their biggest problems. The comparison companies had a penchant for doing just the opposite, failing to grasp the fact that managing your problems can only make you good, whereas building your opportunities is the only way to become great.” s.59
• “Indeed, one of the crucial elements in taking a company from good to great is somewhat paradoxical. You need executives, on the one hand, who argue and debate – sometimes violently – in pursuit of the best answers, yet, on the other hand, who unify fully behind a decision, regardless of parochial interest.” s.60
• “It was striking to hear them talk about the transition era, for no matter how dark the days or how big the tasks, these people had fun! They enjoyed each other’s company and actually looked forward to meetings.” s.62
• “Good-to-great Management teams consist of people who debate vigorously in search for the best answers, yet who unify behind decisions, regardless of parochial interests.” s.63

 

4: Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)

• “You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts. The good-to-great companies operated in accordance with this principle, and the comparison companies generally did not.” s.70
• “At Pitney Bowes, The entire management team would lay itself open to searing questions and challenges from salespeople who dealt directly with customers. The company created a long-standing tradition of forums where people could stand up and tell senior executives what the company was doing wrong, shoving rocks with squiggly things in their faces, and saying, “Look! You’d better pay attention to this.”” s.72
• “Like Wurtzel, Leaders in each of the good-to-great transitions operated with a somewhat Socratic style. Furthermore, they used questions for one and only one reason: to gain understanding. They didn’t use question as a form of manipulation (“Don’t you agree with me on that?…”) or as a way to blame or put down others (“Why did you mess this up?…”). When the executives were asked about their management team meetings during the transition era, they said that they spent much of the time “just trying to understand”.
  The good-to-great leaders made particularly good use of informal meetings where they would meet with groups of managers and employees with no script, agenda, or set of action items to discuss. Instead, they would start with questions like: “So, what’s on your mind?”, “Can you tell me about that?”, “Can you help me understand?”, “What should we be worried about?” These non-agenda meetings became a forum where current realities tended to bubble to the surface.” s.75
• “Leading from good to great does not mean coming up with the answers and then motivating everyone to follow your messianic vision. It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the questions that will lead to the best possible insights.” s.75
• “When you start with an honest and diligent effort to determine the truth of your situation, the right decisions often become self-evident.” s.88
• “Creating a climate where the truth is heard involves 4 basic practices:
  Lead with questions, not answers.
  2. Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion.
  3. Conduct autopsies, without blame.
  4. Built red flag mechanisms that turn information into information that cannot be ignored.
  ” s.88

 

5: The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles)

• “A Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles: 1; What you can be the best in the world at, 2: What drives your economic engine, and 3; What you are deeply passionate about.” s.95
• “A Hedgehog Concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. It is an understanding of what you can be the best at. The distinction is absolutely crucial.” s.98
• “ A Hedgehog Concept requires a severe standard of excellence. It’s not just about building on strength and competence, but about understanding what your organization truly has the potential to be the very best at and sticking to it.” s.100
• “Recognize that getting a Hedgehog Concept is an inherently iterative process, not an event.” s.114
• “One particularly useful mechanism for moving the process along is a device that we came to call the Council. The Council consists of a group of the right people who participate in dialogue and debate guided by the three circles, iteratively and overtime, about vital issues and decisions facing the organization.” s.115
• “Characteristics of the Council:
  The Council exists as a device to gain understanding about important issues facing the organization.
  2. The Council is assembled and used by the leading executive and usually consists of 5 to 12 people.
  3. Each Council member has the ability to argue and debate in search of understanding, not from the egoistic need to win a point or protect a parochial interest.
  4. Each Council member retains the respect of every other Council member, without exception.
  5. Council members come from a range of perspectives, but each member has deep knowledge about some aspect of the organization and/or the environment in which it operates.
  6. The Council includes key members of the management team but is not limited members of the management team, nor is every executive automatically a member.
  7. The Council is a standing body, not an ad hoc committee assembled for a specific project.
  8. The Council meets periodically, as much as once a week or as infrequently as one per quarter.” s.115

 

6: A Culture of Discipline

• “The good-to-great companies built a consistent system with clear constraints, but they also gave people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system. They hired self-disciplined people who didn’t need to be managed, and then managed the system, not the people.” s.125
• “Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding “to do” lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing, – and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of “stop doing” lists as “to do” lists.” s.139

 

7: Technology Accelerators

• “When used right, technology becomes an accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it. The good-to-great companies never began their transitions with pioneering technology, for the simple reason that you cannot make good use of technology until you know which technologies are relevant. And which are those? Those – and only those – that link directly to the three intersecting circles of the Hedgehog Concept.” s.152
• “We were quite surprised to find that fully 80% of the good-to-great executives we interviewed didn’t even mention technology as one of the top five factors in the transition. Furthermore, in the cases where they did mentioned technology, it had a median ranking of 4th, with only two executives of 84 interviewed ranking number one.” s.155
• “Those who built the good-to-great companies weren’t motivated by fear. They weren’t driven by fear of what they didn’t understand. They weren’t driven by fear of looking like a chump. They weren’t driven by fear of watching others hit it quick while they didn’t. They weren’t driven by the fear of being hammered by the competition.
  No, those who turn good into great are motivated by a deep creative urge and an inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for its own sake. Those who built and perpetuate mediocrity, in contrast, are motivated by the fear of being left behind.” s.160
• “Good-to-great Organizations avoid technology fads and bandwagons, yet they become pioneers in the application of carefully selected technologies.” s.162

 

8: The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

• “The flywheel image captures the overall feel of what it was like inside the companies as they went from good to great. No matter how dramatic the end result, the good-to-great transformations never happened in one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no wrenching revolution. Good to great comes about by a cumulative process – step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel – that adds up to sustained and spectacular results.
  Yet to read media accounts of the companies, you might draw an entirely different conclusion. Often, the media does not cover a company until the flywheel is already turning at a thousand rotations per minute. This entirely skews our perception of how such transformation happen, making it seem as if they jumped right to breakthrough as some sort of an overnight metamorphosis.” s.165
• “The good-to-great companies had no name for their transformations. There was no launch event, no tagline, no programmatic feel whatsoever. Some executives said that they weren’t even aware that a major transition was underway until they were well into it. It was often more obvious to them after the fact than at the time.” s.169

 

9: From Good to Great to Built to Last

• “Enduring great companies don’t exist merely to deliver returns to shareholders. Indeed, in a truly great company, profits and cash flow become like blood and water to a healthy body: They are absolutely essential life, but they are not the very point of life.” s.194
• “Genius of AND. Embrace both extremes on a number of dimensions at the same time. Instead of choosing A OR B, figure out how to have A AND B – purpose AND profit, continuity AND change, freedom AND responsibility, etc.” s.198
• “Indeed, the point of this entire book is not that we should “add” these findings to what we are already doing and make ourselves even more overworked. No, the point is to realize that much of what we are doing is at best a waste of energy. If we organized the majority of our work time around applying these principles, and pretty much ignored or stopped doing everything else, our lives would be simpler and our results vastly improved.” s.205

 

10: FAQs

• “The single biggest danger in business and life, other than outright failure, is to be successful without being resolutely clear about why you are successful in the first place.” Robert Burgleman s.213

 

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