There are so many business books I have read that have benefited our publishing company or my author platform. Over the next few months, I will highlight some of my favorite business books with a brief synopsis of the book as well as my top ten take aways or quotes.

Book Title: Good to Great

Author: Jim Collins

Book Synopsis:

Built to Last, the defining management study of the ’90s, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.

But what about companies that are not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? Are there those that convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? If so, what are the distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

Over five years, Jim Collins and his research team have analyzed the histories of 28 companies, discovering why some companies make the leap and others don’t. The findings include:

• Level 5 Leadership: A surprising style, required for greatness
• The Hedgehog Concept: Finding your three circles, to transcend the curse of competence
• A Culture of Discipline: The alchemy of great results
• Technology Accelerators: How good-to-great companies think differently about technology
• The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Why those who do frequent restructuring fail to make the leap

My Review:

This book is a good read when you are in a position of leadership and running a team. It’s about how it’s very easy to do good work and be a good company. But that being a GREAT company and being extraordinary is in the people on your team, how you work as a leader and the purpose/mission behind all that you do.

Top Ten Quotes:

1. “When come together, not only does your work move toward greatness, but so does your life. For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then, you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you’ve had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions: knowing that your short time here on this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered.”
2. “Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.”
3. “A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.”
4. “Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated.”
5. “The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results.”
6. “The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake.”
7. “While you can buy your way to growth, you absolutely cannot buy your way to greatness.”
8. “Perhaps your quest to be part of building something great will not fall in your business life. But find it somewhere. If not in corporate life, then perhaps in making your church great. If not there, then perhaps a nonprofit, or a community organization, or a class you teach. Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.”
9. “It didn’t matter how bleak the situation or how stultifying their mediocrity, they all maintained unwavering faith that they would not just survive, but prevail as a great company. And yet, at the same time, they became relentlessly disciplined at confronting the most brutal facts of their current reality.”
10. “Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people. The management team”

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My name is Maria Dismondy. I am a children’s book author who also founded the publishing company, Cardinal Rule Press.

Finding ways to market my messages is a passion of mine. I want to help you gain greater recognition of your brand, to generate new readers and improve your sales. Why? Because I love to GIVE and CONNECT and I truly believe we are all in this together!