Amazon.com's Best of 2001
Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
The Challenge
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning.
But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?
The Study
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?
The Standards
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.
The Comparisons
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?
Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't.
The Findings
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:
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Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
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The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.
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A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
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The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.
“Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”
Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?
Customer Reviews:
Jim Collins is a Level 5 Thought Leader.......2007-10-23
I can confirm many of the ideas in this book from my own research on Superperformance. There is a consistent pattern that underlies high performing companies of every stripe. It is interesting to note that many of the companies lauded in GOOD TO GREAT and BUILT TO LAST are no longer shining so bright. Succession planning should focus on sustaining the 'way of being' not the CEO.
also read Superperformance
Great.......2007-10-20
Two things I love about this book.
1. It is bang on in terms of the things that matter to a tech startup
2. It is short - half the book is methodology
Thorough analysis with actionable recommendations.......2007-10-20
This book was recommended to me by someone I respect so I didn't do much research before ordering. At first the easy reading style gave me the impression that it had little substance. However, after getting into the book I realized that there was a great deal of substantive research backing up the recommendations. Some of the reviews have indicated a concern that the rules may have changed since the research was conducted. I too had reservations that his research might be a bit dated. However after further reflection and observation of current organizations I would have to firmly disagree. Mr. Collins and his research team have uncovered timeless recommendations that I plan to put into action in my organization. Moreover, my company was listed as one of the "Comparison Companies" not considered "Great" during the time periods analyzed. Fortunately, a lot has changed since the analysis period in the book. We merged with a better company which resulted in a much stronger leadership team and more effective corporate culture.
From Good to Great to Best.......2007-10-19
This well researched book provides the principles to enable good companies to become great. The "first who, then what" concept contradicts the old "What first (Vision, mission, guiding principles, tactics, etc)". Having read Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self, I am convinced that there is an additional step required to experience organizational optimization - execution based on Optimal Thinking by individuals, teams, departments and the entire organization. When we choose, attract and retain the best, we stop settling for second best (which could be great). I recommend both books.
Greatness Revealed.......2007-10-19
As I was reading this book, I thought numerous times of how wonderful it would be if I was working at a company that was trying to transform itself from good to great. The reality, however, is that most people don't work at great companies. Instead, most of us work at mediocre companies fighting to stay alive in today's competitive business world, unsure as to the one thing the business could do better than anyone else.
This book is thoroughly researched and thought provoking. The ideas are timeless and, if followed, I am convinced that the results would speak for themselves. The eleven or so companies used as model companies in the book that changed from good to great are still thriving today, six years after the book was published, and the employees engaged in the work love it, I am sure. And who wouldn't? Working with a company determined to be successful would be exciting, if not challenging. I only wish I could bring up some of the practices described in detail in this book to those leaders of my current company. Until changes are made, its greatness will forever be on hold.
Book Description
Thompson, Strickland and Gamble's, CRAFTING AND EXECUTING STRATEGY, 15e presents the latest research findings from the literature and cutting-edge strategic practices of companies have been incorporated to keep step with both theory and practice. Scores of new examples have been added to complement the new and updated Illustration Capsules. More chapter-end exercises have been included. The result is a text treatment with more punch, greater clarity, and improved classroom effectiveness. But none of the changes have altered the fundamental character that has driven the text's success over the years. The chapter content continues to be solidly mainstream and balanced, mirroring both the best academic thinking and the pragmatism of real-world strategic management. This paperback version of the text does not contain any cases, but it does include 21 readings from noted business writers that support the concepts in the main text portion. Instructors who would like to create their own case packets to go with this book should go to www.mhhe.com/primis to make their selections.
Customer Reviews:
False Discription.......2007-10-22
I ordered this book for my upper level business course at the university i attend and it is complete worthless to me. I needed the cases that WERE supposed to come with the book. Yet i received only the subject matter information, needless to say i wasted my money and i had to run copies off of someone elses text book. Maybe next time i will just pay the extra $60.00! At least ill know its the right book. Thanks!
Does not have BSG online code.......2007-05-06
Same contents as the hard cover edition but this version does not come with BSG online access code. If you will need to play the Business Strategy Game online, you will need to pay $35 extra for online access code.
Language is a bit simplistic, not the type you would expect in a business textbook.
Easy read.......2007-04-01
This book is fairly easy to read. Lots of good/useful case studies.
Exellent condition.......2007-03-23
Book was in great condition. Received exactly as described. Top class seller.
The authors should find a different editor........2007-02-05
This book contains a lot of valuable information on market strategy. The content of the book is very useful, but also very wordy and repetitive. That makes gleaning the book's "meat" a very frustrating task.
Fortunately, core concepts are listed in page margins to summarize main ideas. There are also diagrams illustrating these core concepts. These will help you to skip past the fluffy content.
I think this book shows real promise but is in serious need of copy editing.
Amazon.com Reviews
How would you classify a book that begins with the salutation, "People of Earth..."? While the captains of industry might dismiss it as mere science fiction, The Cluetrain Manifesto is definitely of this day and age. Aiming squarely at the solar plexus of corporate America, authors Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger show how the Internet is turning business upside down. They proclaim that, thanks to conversations taking place on Web sites and message boards, and in e-mail and chat rooms, employees and customers alike have found voices that undermine the traditional command-and-control hierarchy that organizes most corporate marketing groups. "Markets are conversations," the authors write, and those conversations are "getting smarter faster than most companies." In their view, the lowly customer service rep wields far more power and influence in today's marketplace than the well-oiled front office PR machine.
The Cluetrain Manifesto began as a Web site (www.cluetrain.com) in 1999 when the authors, who have worked variously at IBM, Sun Microsystems, the Linux Journal, and NPR, posted 95 theses that pronounced what they felt was the new reality of the networked marketplace. For example, thesis no. 2: "Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors"; thesis no. 20: "Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them"; thesis no. 62: "Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall"; thesis no. 74: "We are immune to advertising. Just forget it." The book enlarges on these themes through seven essays filled with dozens of stories and observations about how business gets done in America and how the Internet will change it all. While Cluetrain will strike many as loud and over the top, the message itself remains quite relevant and unique. This book is for anyone interested in the Internet and e-commerce, and is especially important for those businesses struggling to navigate the topography of the wired marketplace. All aboard! --Harry C. Edwards
Book Description
Written by four of the liveliest voices on the Web, this book takes you deeper into the new order of business than any this decade. The Cluetrain Manifesto presents a stunning tapestry of anecdotes, object lessons, parodies, war stories, and suggestions, all aimed at illustrating what it will take to survive and prosper in the fast-forward world on the wire.
The Cluetrain Manifesto burst onto the scene in March 1999, with ninety-five theses nailed up on the Web. Within days, the website had ignited a vibrant global conversation challenging sacred corporate assumptions about the very nature of business in a digital world. The Wall Street Journal called it "absolutely brilliant." Soon, executives from Fortune 500 companies everywhere were lining up to sign-on to the Manifesto. This is the book that delivers on the buzz.
The Cluetrain Manifesto is a wake-up call that says business as usual is gone forever. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter-and getting smarter faster than most companies. Today's markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny, and often shocking. Companies that aren't listening to these exchanges are missing a dire warning. Companies that aren't engaging in them are missing an unprecedented opportunity.
The Cluetrain Manifesto is the culmination of this very real phenomenon. It shares powerful, firsthand experiences describing how Internet business differs radically from the corporate status quo. The fact is that employees are getting hyperlinked even as markets are. Companies need to listen carefully to both.
Customer Reviews:
A for ideas, D- for persuasion.......2007-09-27
This influential book lays out the reasons why companies need to replace corporate speak and marketing puff with online conversations. The reasons are compelling, but the way the authors make their case won't win them many converts. They go on the attack with scathing gusto, dismissing "Fort Business" as a bunch of obsolete buffoons and/or swindlers. Strangely, these buffoons and swindlers are the very people Cluetrain hopes to convert to an entirely new way of thinking.
Looking past the rhetoric, Cluetrain really does make some crucial points. Here are a few that stood out to me -
1. The control mentality of management doesn't work in a wired world where people and information are easily and instantly connected.
2. Companies pay too much attention to competitors and not enough to customers.
3. If companies did pay attention to customers, they'd discover that customers want "Authenticity, honesty, and personal voice ..." (p. 51) Companies mistakenly view customers as consumers instead of people. We don't exist to consume (hopefully).
4. "Positioning should help a company become what it is, not something it's not (no matter how cool it would be)." (p. 99)
5. You can't bluff about your company or products online. People will find you out.
6. The Web challenges formal corporate organizational structures. People can connect and collaborate with whomever they need to in order to get the job done. The Web values competence over position.
Of course, all of this was just as true before the Web. However, the Web has magnified their importance. Today, the penalties for ignoring the Cluetrain principles are stiff, and the rewards are huge, and in the years ahead - even more so.
For a gentler and more balanced assessment of conversations in business and the new marketing rules, try Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers and The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly.
A little dated now, but still right on.......2007-09-07
Cluetrain is an odd and irreverent book. The tone of the time was probably a shock to most readers back when originally published in 2001, and even still it upholds some wry quirkiness the authors were going for as they wrote about the future of the Web. Much has changed in the world of Web since the manifesto was released, and I'm certain, not all of it to the authors liking. The web has become much more corporatized, ecommerce much more like traditional commerce and online marketing shows some vast similarities to off-line marketing. The current web isn't quite what the authors anticipated!
But much of what the authors preach about the web being a conversation is still so very true. And amazingly, many businesses still have not figured that out. While business on the web may bear some resemblance to the off-line world, it's still a very different place. That's what Cluetrain is all about.
Cluetrain will help you understand that the same old processes and strategies that worked off-line for some many years, need not apply here. While there are many similarities, online and offline marketing operate very differently. The book will put you in the mindset to realize that marketing on the web can be done with new ideas, fresh strategies, and most importantly, on a person-to-person level. Throw the corporate play book away. It's time to build a new playbook entirely.
Markets are conversations.......2007-04-27
Having grown up with high-speed internet as an expected must have, this book serves as an interesting reminder of the days I have missed. Multiplayer games, cross-referencing product review on web forums, asking other internet users for advice on products, all the things that seem natural today are in many ways changing the rules of the marketing game, and Cluetrain is all about this dynamic: markets are conversations. Broadcast media is once again being replaced by an older strategy of person-to-person contact, instead of a one way marketing stream.
Some of the information is slightly outdated, some of the sections are plain wacky, but it's an interesting work nonetheless, especially if you're into marketing.
A manifesto for corporate communication in the Internet age.......2007-02-25
Reading the "Cluetrain Manifesto" today is like reading an historic document. The book fuses the countercultural ethos of the 1960s with the go-go business dynamics of the 1990s. Written during the height of the Internet boom, the authors forecast the end not only of corporate marketing, but of traditional corporations altogether. They predicted a transition to an Internet-enabled marketplace of bartering and bantering individuals. The book's pages contain a wealth of overstatement, hyperbole, and provocation (as many have already noted). The flurry of lawsuits based on offhand email (`evidence mail') which emerged after the Internet crash have reemphasized the need for the caution and disclaimers to which the authors so passionately objected.
The basic message of the book remains fresh and contemporary, however. "Markets are conversations." Corporations should encourage those conversations, not inhibit them. It's clear that many corporations still haven't gotten the point. Some companies still require that customers sign pointless non-disclosure agreements to talk with their representatives and other customers about their products. Other companies treat their websites like big, glossy advertising brochures instead of centers of community. Still others issue the bland and senseless press releases derided by the Cluetrain Manifesto to their customers, leaving bloggers to read between the lines and to speculate about what's really going on inside the company.
But some of the largest corporations have clearly gotten the message--or at least a tempered form of it. The best way to cultivate loyalty and confidence among consumers is to become more transparent by allowing conversations to take place not simply between consumers and public relations representatives, but between people working with products and people designing those products. Microsoft's Channel 9 is a good example of a corporation sponsoring an online community that connects individuals to individuals. While this kind of marketing will doubtlessly always be somewhat messy and make some P.R. folk uneasy, it's far more effective than the business-as-usual approach of issuing sanitized press releases to an anonymous group of `consumers.' For the wakeup call that communications between human beings should take place in human voices we are still in these authors' debt.
outdated .......2007-01-03
Good Overview of where things are coming from and a good couple insights. Concepts are not outdated but some of the information is.
Book Description
Thompson/Strickland READINGS is the softcover readings component of this market-leading strategic management package. The readings reflect current thought in strategic management.
Book Description
STRATEGY: Winning in the Marketplace is the newest offering from proven authors Thompson, Gamble, and Strickland. As in previous works, the authors' mainstream presentation includes the most recent research in strategy presented in a way that students can understand and apply to business cases and problems. With fewer chapters and pages than previous texts by these authors, this text offers a more concise, lively, and user-friendly presentation of strategic management. Fundamental strengths of Thompson/Gamble/Strickland text treatments are very much evident in this edition-a compelling presentation of Porter's Five-Forces model and globally competitive markets and first-rate coverage of strategy execution and the drive for operating excellence.
Book Description
A clear and robust business strategy is essential to any successful enterprise. It must be understood by employees, customers, and stakeholders, and must have the universal support of the entire leadership team and board of directors.
Customer Reviews:
Great Proffessional Reading.......2007-03-10
I have really enjoyed this book. There are a few chapters that are oriented more for a seminar development, but I found the reading to be very education. The material is not presented as a "text book", but it can be used to develope strategic planning sessions.
Book Description
The second edition of this successful book addresses how technologies evolve and how they drive the need for organizational change and adaptation. Focusing on the general-management challenges that innovative firms face, the editors draw from a variety of disciplines and demonstrate the links between innovation, organizational competencies, organizational architectures, executive teams, and managing change.
Customer Reviews:
A Treasury of Eloquent Insights and Practical Wisdom .......2007-08-08
What we have here is an anthology of 42 articles that, collectively, examine a wide range of strategies and tactics for effective management of innovation as an organizational problem, not merely a technical problem. As co-editors Michael Tushman and Philip Anderson suggest in the Preface, "bringing an innovation to market involves more than creating something new. It is a strategic challenge because innovations succeed when they reach the right market at the right time with the right competitive positioning. It requires the management of change because innovations succeed when new ways of operating are aligned with new value propositions." I should add that Tushman and Anderson are also among the contributors. Others include Clayton Christensen, Stephen Jay Gould, Jim Collins, Jerry Porras, Jeffrey Pfeffer, Charles O'Reilly III, John Seely Brown, and Henry Chesbrough.
Although the book was written primarily for use in business school courses, carefully selected portions of the material will also be of substantial interest and value to countless others (e.g. C-level executives) who are charged with determining how their own organization can most effectively respond to the perils and opportunities of change and innovation. It remains for each decision-maker to determine which articles are of greatest relevant to her or his organization.
The 42 readings are carefully organized within seven sections. Of greatest interest to me are Section V ("Knowledge, Learning, and Intellectual Capital") because its contributors explore the problem of accelerating the rate at which an organization generates and deploys knowledge, and, Section VII (""Executive Leadership and Managing Innovation and Change") because its contributors explore focus on the essential organizational component that galvanizes all others: leadership. Here are two brief excerpts that correctly indicate the quality of content that is consistent throughout all of the articles.
On why so many strong, capably managed firms stumble when faced with particular types of technological change: "While many scholars see the issue primarily as an issue of [begin italics] technological competence [end italics], we assert that at a deeper level; it may be an issue of [begin italics] investment [end italics]. We have observed that when competence was lacking but impetus from customers to develop that competence was sufficiently strong, established firms successfully led their industries in developing the competencies required for sustaining technological change. Importantly because sustaining technologies address the interests of established firms' existing customers, we saw that technological change could be achieved without strategy change." Clayton M. Christensen and Joseph L. Bower, "Customer Power, Strategic Investment, and the Failure of Leading Firms"
On building a culture that supports constant mindfulness and experimentation: "It isn't sufficient to generate new ideas now and then. Your company - or more likely a part of it - needs to be a place that generates and tests many disparate ideas. It should be an arena, a constant and constructive contest, where the best ideas win. Will these ideas about innovation ever look anything but weird to the majority of managers? Probably not, because most companies will always devote more time, people, and money to exploiting old ideas than to exploring new ones. Exposure effects being what they are, managing for creativity will always require a conscious effort. However, if you read `Dilbert' or have friends in the arts, you know that exposure effects cut both ways. To people who spend their days doing creative work, the way that most companies are managed seems just as weird." Robert I. Sutton, "The Weird Rules of Creativity"
Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Jeanne Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson's Enterprise Architecture as Strategy as well as Thomas Kelley's The Ten Faces of Innovation, Dean Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement, Adrian Slywotsky's The Upside, and Richard Ogle's Smart World.
Book Description
The second edition of this popular volume, edited by Randall S. Schuler and Susan E. Jackson, provides management students and senior practitioners with a completely new and updated guide to the latest work in the field. This selection of important and highly readable articles from authors around the world charts key developments that have changed the theory and practice of SHRM over the last six years.Since the first edition in 1999, there have been two major forces at work in the field of HRM and SHRM:Globalization - Globalization has brought an increase in competition worldwide and has made the effective management of people even more important. Newer organizational forms like international joint ventures and international mergers and acquisitions have resulted. Together these have a huge impact on the fields of HRM and SHRM.Knowledge Management - Associated with globalization and increased competition, is the need for companies to be more knowledgeable in the dynamics of worldwide competition and labor markets, and to manage knowledge more systematically than ever before.The welcome second edition of Strategic Human Resource Management provides an invaluable guide to work at the cutting edge of the discipline, highlighting the new reality of SHRM in a global, knowledge-based environment.
Books:
- Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
- Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
- Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
- Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation
- Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- I Read It, but I Don't Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers
- Introduction to Business
- Introduction to Probability and Statistics (with CD-ROM)
- J.K. Lasser's Your Winning Retirement Plan
Books Index
Books Home
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Strategy & Competition
| Management & Leadership
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Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
![The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0374292795.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
