{"id":5824,"date":"2019-12-21T21:56:48","date_gmt":"2019-12-22T01:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=5824"},"modified":"2022-03-17T15:56:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T19:56:14","slug":"good-is-the-enemy-of-great","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/good-is-the-enemy-of-great\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Is the Enemy of Great: Jim Collins on Business Success"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In his book Good to Great<\/a><\/em>, Jim Collins argues that good is the enemy of great. Why? And must we all strive for greatness? What separates the good companies from the truly great ones?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ll cover why good is the enemy of great and Jim Collins’s strategies for turning a good company into a great one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Must We All Strive for Greatness?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Before the transition point, both the good-to-great companies and their comparisons were either tracking or slightly bettering the general market return. But this didn\u2019t feel enough.
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Why try to build something great?
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Collins has two answers:

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#1: Greatness requires no more (and sometimes less) effort than goodness.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Although fewer companies reach greatness overall, the actual procedures necessary to achieve greatness\u2014hiring the right people<\/a>, developing a Hedgehog Concept<\/a>, maintaining discipline\u2014aren\u2019t prohibitively painful.

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Think about the \u201cstop doing\u201d list: Many of the reforms necessary to achieve greatness actually involve reducing energy output and waste<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re wasting time on tasks that aren’t priorities, you may have a good company, but not a great one. This is one reason good is the enemy of great.

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#2: If you feel like what you do has purpose, the quest for greatness is a given.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Level 5 executives Collins interviewed strived for greatness not for accolades or material rewards but rather for the sake of<\/em> greatness itself<\/em>.

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They believed deeply in their mission and the mission of their companies, and because they felt like what they did had profound meaning, they wanted to do it as best they could.<\/strong> It would never occur to them to settle for \u201cjust OK.\u201d If you settle for good, you’ll never be great. Good is the enemy of great.

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If, at your job or in another area of your life, you find yourself content to float in the middle of the pack, it stands to reason that that part of your life doesn\u2019t excite your imagination and passion. Remember hedgehog thinking: Greatness requires great enthusiasm<\/strong>. If you\u2019re doing something you love, you can\u2019t help but want to be great at it.
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And once you start doing meaningful work<\/a>, you will find yourself on the path to having a meaningful life and feeling like you made a contribution. Collins ends the book on a reflective note, saying that the greatest satisfaction is knowing that your short time alive meant something.
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Good Is the Enemy of Great<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The follow-up to Built to Last<\/em>, Jim Collins\u2019s influential study of 18 of America\u2019s enduringly great companies, Good to Great<\/em> leverages a 20-person research team, dozens of interviews, and thousands of pages of documents to answer two questions: Can a good <\/em>company become a great <\/em>one? And, if it can, how<\/em>? He concluded that a good company can <\/em>become a great one, but good is the enemy of great. You need to actively work toward greatness to achieve it. Settling for good and waiting for your fortunes to change is never enough.
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Methods<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To identify clear examples of good-to-great transitions, Collins and his team searched for companies with 15-year returns equal to or below the general market that, after a distinct transition point, recorded 15-year returns at least three times the general market<\/strong>. They found 11 companies that met these criteria.

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Collins and his team then identified a \u201ccomparison company\u201d for each good-to-great company. The criteria for comparison companies were that (1) they were similarly resourced and situated as their relative good-to-great companies and (2) their returns remained at or below the general market return after the transition point.

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The researchers also examined six \u201cunsustained comparisons\u201d\u2014companies that beat the market after the transition point but failed to sustain those results across the full 15-year threshold. These companies settled, and good is the enemy of great.
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The Companies<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The 11 companies are listed below. Comparison companies are in parentheses, followed by the companies\u2019 industries.
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