Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The 10,000th management guru ?
This is another in a long line of overly simplistic books which purport to identify what all management books purport to identify, namely, what is great management? The conceptual errors here legion:
Firstly, if such a thing could be put in a little book all companies would be great.
Secondly, the author starts by singling out and dealing only with the magic 11 fortune 500 companies his huge staff could identify based on earnings growth over the last 15 years, but "best" really has no meaning in this context. For example, he starts with fortune 500 companies which automatically means they are all the best to begin with given they are the largest companies to have survived among the millions that come and go each year. Don't all fortune 500 companies have tremendous growth of some kind oven some 15 year period in their history?
Who can say that the magic 11 have great management and GM does not even though GM is huge compared to any of the magic 11? Did Mr. Collins do an experiment to prove his thesis? Without access to the earning numbers can he identify a great company from the million of choices? This guy should be making his money in the stock market rather than by selling books.
GM is a mature company in a mature market with moddest earning growth, but are they better or worse managers than Microsoft which has enjoyed tremendous earning growth largely because they got into a business they didn't even want (operating systems) that fortunately provided a base on which huge earnings grew. In fact it is a business school axiom that the companies who are the most successful lose to their own arrogance in the end. This is how IBM missed small computers and how GE & RCA missed big computers.
The team's findings about the importance of good leadership, of choosing the right people, of staying focused on a simple message seems laughable. Had the previous wisdom been that bad leadership was the path the higher earnings? The author talks about making a commitment, and having passion toward what you are doing in the context of describing how Kimberly Clark turned heroically away from some of its businesses toward what they were passionate about: Kleenex. It clearly seemed that the author could not understand that real passion does not exist toward Kleenex or that you could not attract and motivate talent if you required a passion for Kleenex. Money, prestige, and competence are more likely to motivate managers.
The research team's findings about the importance of good leadership, of choosing the right people, of staying focused on a simple message seem even worse as the author feebly tries to explain Walgreen's success versus Eckerts, CVS Rite Aid, and the 100s of others that have tried to put simple cookie cutter drug stores on every corner. Didn't the also-rans see what Walgreen was doing? Didn't they hire Walgreen Management, didn't they copy them, and try harder and harder as they desperately sank to 2nd and 3rd and then into bankruptcy? Figuring out why Walgreen won may be a little like figuring why the Beatles won? Perhaps because Paul was so cute, and Walgreens name, logo, colors, and ads were just a tiny bit cuter than the competition. We don't know and never will.
Circuit City is one of the Magic 11. But, its stock is off 66% so far this year. Who wants to bet it will be included in the next management guru book? IBM, Xerox, and Polaroid were all hailed has having great long term management but they all died (well, almost) because they happened on great products, not great managements. While their products were great, book entrepreneurs made a fortune talking about their managements.
Rating:  - Good is the Enemy of Great
Jim Collins brilliantly displays his extensive research throughout his eye opening book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't. I really don't read much for leisure, but this book kept me interested until the last page. It showed how to take a good company and make it great, by giving comprehensive guides for managing people and mostly importantly managing yourself in a work environment. It used modern day examples of companys such as Walgreens and Eckerd, companies I have actually shopped at. Collins and his team of researchers conducted detailed research among great companies and gave comparisions as to why each company succeded and why their comparision company did not. If you plan on running your own business at some point in your life, this is a must read. If you work at a company and hope to climb the latter to managament, this is a must read.
This book takes a look at all aspects of a company and how each employee must realize their role and fulfill it. He attributes that one of the most important aspects in becoming a "great" company is possessing a Level 5 Leader. The term Level 5 refers to the highest point of a hierachial scale created by Collins, in which the leader embrasses the first 4 levels of the scale to become a caring and professional leader. He goes on to give strategies for guiding the company in the right direction, keeping the right employees, getting rid of the wrong ones, and putting the right ones into the right positions. Some of the main aspects he contributes to having a good company is Level 5 Leadership, finding the right employees and utilizing them in the right positions, being able to "confront the brutal facts", understanding them and then being able to deal with them, embracing the Hedgehog Concept, providing a culture of discipline within the company, and lastely dealing with technology accelerators.Read this book. Its worth your time.
Rating: - Beyond hero worship
Possibly the best business book I've ever read, or at least the best that wasn't a journalistic narrative or a history. Most business "advice" books really just amount to hero worship (how to be like Jack Welch, or whoever), and Good to Great is a strong antidote to all that rot. While we gravitate toward big personalities and dramatic stories, the real roots of greatness like elsewhere -- the CEO names in Good to Great won't be familiar to most readers, but their successes are real, and Collins and his team do a nice job of extracting meaning from the data they've assembled. One among many surprising conclusions is that charismatic leaders might actually be a *detriment* to their firms. Then again, after Ebbers, Skilling, and others, maybe we won't find that news so surprising any more... Anyway, the book is clearly written and thoughtfully organized, and well worth reading if you're interested, for whatever reason, in what makes some companies thrive and others fail. A wise book.
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