Artifact 1
A Book Review on Good To Great by Jim Collins
Organizational Leadership
X
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This artifact was developed during a graduate level course, Case Studies EDA
6931.
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This graduate level coursework was completed at Florida Gulf Coast University in
Fall 2007.
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My role in producing the written paper was as graduate student. Independent
reading increases my background knowledge.
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95 A – APA error
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This project addresses the following Florida Educational Leadership Standards:
Standard 1:
Vision
The principal has a personal vision for the school and the
knowledge, skills, and dispositions to develop, articulate and
implement a shared vision that is supported by the larger
organization and the school community.
Standard 2:
Instructional
Leadership
The principal promotes a positive learning culture, provides
an effective instructional program and applies best practices
to student learning, especially in the area of reading and
other foundational skills.
Standard 3:
Managing
the Learning
Environment
The principal manages the organization, operations, facilities
and resources in ways that maximize the use of resources in
an instructional organization and promotes a safe, efficient,
legal, and effective learning environment.
Standard 4:
Community
and
Stakeholder
Partnerships
The principal collaborates with families, business, and
community members, responds to diverse community
interests and needs, works effectively within the larger
organization and mobilizes community resources.
Standard 5:
Decision
Making
Strategies
The principal plans effectively, uses critical thinking and
problem solving techniques, and collects and analyzes data
for continuous school improvement.
Standard 6:
The principal understands, responds to, and influences the
personal, political, social, economic, legal, and cultural
X
Diversity
relationships in the classroom, the school, and the local
community.
Standard 7:
Technology
The principal plans and implements the integration of
technological and electronic tools in teaching, learning,
management, research and communication responsibilities.
Standard 8:
Learning,
Accountabili
ty, and
Assessment
The principal monitors the success of all students in the
learning environment, aligns the curriculum, instruction, and
assessment process to promote effective student
performance, and uses a variety of benchmarks, learning
expectations, and feedback measures to ensure
accountability for all participants engaged in the educational
process
Standard 9:
Human
Resource
Developmen
t
The principal recruits, selects, nurtures and where
appropriate, retains effective personnel, develops mentor
and partnership programs, and designs and implements
comprehensive professional growth plans for all staff—paid
and volunteer.
Standard 10:
Ethical
Leadership
The principal acts with integrity, fairness, and honesty in an
ethical manner.
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Reflective statement: I learned that leaders must never stop trying to be qualified
for their job. The skills I learned by reading this book are vast. This reading
impacted every facet of my professional life. The steps to escalating an
organization from good to great are clearer to me after reading this book.
Book Review
EDA 6931 Case Studies in Educational Leadership
Adrienne McElroy
Collins, J (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap... and others
don't. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
1. Overview:
Jim Collins has created an entertaining nonfiction piece of literature. As the title depicts,
Collins and his research team analyze good companies that have become great
companies. They investigated their organizational methods, leadership qualities, and
many other factors that have contributed to these great organizations.
This book is a portrayal of how organizations transform from good organizations to great
organizations. Although, the premise of this book is business I am careful to say
organizations here is this overview. Throughout the book, Collins makes reference to
organizations other than businesses, for example, the legendary UCLA Bruins
basketball dynasty of the 1960s and 1970s. Utilizing the flywheel concept, Coach
Wooden took a good team to greatness. Collins expresses that good is the enemy of
great and it is not merely a business problem but a human problem. We do not have
great schools, newspapers, churches, and governments because we have good
schools, newspapers, churches, and governments.
As outlined by Collins and his research team, the path from good to great is a process
of buildup followed by breakthrough which is divided into three broad stages: disciplined
people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. The disciplined people stage is
defined by the Level 5 leadership and First Who…then What concepts. The disciplined
thought stage including Confront the Brutal Facts and Hedgehog Concept. Finally,
disciplined action stage consists of Culture of Discipline and Technology Accelerators.
Due to the empirical nature of his findings, Collin insists these are timeless findings
untouched by the economy.
2. Source of information/research/background study references:
Bill Meehan, Managing Director of McKinsey & Company, challenged Jim Collins by
asking him “…what about the vast majority of companies that wake up partway through
life and realize that they’re good, but not great?” He went on to explain he loved his first
co-authored book Built to Last but it was useless to good companies. He explained that
the companies in Built to Last were always great companies and many good companies
never transform into great companies. This conversation triggered the research project
outlined in Good to Great. Jim Collins sees his strength in being able to take a lump of
unorganized information, seeing a pattern, and extracting order from the mess (Collins,
2001, p. 11).
Jim Collins and his research team of 21 people usually in teams of four to six conducted
a five-year research effort exploring the inner workings of good to great companies.
They defined “good to great” as companies that had good results/stock returns but
made a leap to great results/stock returns and sustained those great results/stock
returns for at least fifteen years. The team believed that the fifteen year period would
eliminate one-hit wonders, a single great leader, or simply good luck on the market.
Phase 1: The Search
The stock market pattern they searched for was a “fifteen year cumulative stock
return at or below the general stock market, punctuated by a transition point, then
cumulative returns for at least three times the market over the next fifteen years”
(Collins, 2001, p. 6). They found eleven good-to-great examples: Abbott, Circuit
City, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney
Bowes, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo.
Phase 2 – Compared to What?
The research team endeavored to find out what the great companies did that the
good companies did not do. There were 28 companies identified in all. The entire
study set included eleven good-to-great companies, eleven direct comparisons
companies and six unsustained companies. The direct comparison companies
were in the same industry with similar resources and opportunity at the time of
transition. The unsustained companies made a short term change from good to
great but failed to endure the greatness. On page 8 of the book, there is a chart
that outlines the study set.
Phase 3 – Inside the Black Box
This phase included a literature review of all articles published in the last fifty
years on the twenty-eight companies. The articles were categorized and coded.
The team conducted interviews of companies' key players at their transition time.
This phase was titled black box because the research effort was so extreme and
the team members came to think of it as “looking inside a black box” (Collins,
2001, p. 9). Collins emphatically insists that readers must understand all the
concepts developed were done so by empirical deductions directly from data.
The team did not begin with a theory or test to prove.
Phase 4 – Chaos to Concept
From the information gathered by the research team, they developed a
framework that had to meet a meticulous standard before the team would
consider it noteworthy. The concepts that made the final cut endured a change
variable of 100 percent for the good-to-great and less than 30 percent in all the
comparison companies. The final concepts identified by the research team are:
Level 5 Leadership, First Who…Then What, Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never
Lose Faith), The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles), A
Culture of Discipline, Technology Accelerators, and The Flywheel and the Doom
Loop.
3. Essential qualities of effective leaders (descriptive bullets):
Collins coined the term Level 5 Leadership. It refers to a five-level hierarchy
of leadership qualities. Level 5 is at the top and is defined as a leader who
“builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility
and professional will” (2001, p. 20).
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A Level 5 leader must possess ambition for the company above their own
personal ambition.
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Level 5 leaders build success of the company in the future by choosing a
leader that will succeed and set them up for greatness not failure as “Big
Dog” or egocentric leaders do.
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Modesty is a quality of level 5 leaders. Level 5 leaders were described as
being “quiet, humble, modest, reserved, shy, gracious, mild-mannered,
self-effacing, and understated” (Collins, 2001, p. 27). A Level 5 leader in
all aspects, Darwin Smith CEO of Kimberly-Clark, simply stated he never
stopped trying to become qualified for his job. This statement exemplifies
this quality.
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Level 5 leaders do whatever needs to be done to produce sustained
results to make the company great regardless of opposers.
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Hard decisions are made by Level 5 leaders with the diligence of a
workman and less like that of someone that is looking for glory.
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When things go right, Level 5 leaders attribute the success to others.
When things go wrong, they look to themselves for ways to improve. They
often attribute their company’s success to good luck rather than anything
they did.
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Level 5 leaders need the opportunity to develop. Collins delineated, “ten of
the eleven good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company” (2001,
40).
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According to the empirical data, high profile, celebrity leaders did not
become Level 5 leaders. Collins insists these findings are not ideological.
First Who…Then What
 Level 5 leaders must get the right people on the bus which includes
getting the wrong people off the bus. After the right people are on the bus
and in the right seat, the organization can then determine where it is
going. Leaders must be rigorous in their search for the right person,
remembering not to settle and make changes when necessary. Good-togreat teams debate often and do not simply go with the flow.
4. Components of effective/efficient organizations (descriptive bullets):
Confront the Brutal Facts
 An organization must start with a diligent endeavor to define the current
reality. This current reality is a brutal fact by leading with questions,
debating, deep analyses, and the Stockdale Paradox: retain absolute faith
that you can and will prevail in the end regardless of rough times.
Hedgehog Concept
 Collins delineates The Hedgehog Concept to be the manner in which an
organization can simplify a complex world into a single organizing idea,
principle, or concept that will guide and unify all tasks of the organization
similarly to the way a hedgehog survives in the wild. The Hedgehog
Concept is depicted by three intersecting circles that develop a profound
understanding of your organization. The first circle begins with what you
are deeply passionate about. The second circle is what you can be the
best in the world at. The final circle is what drives your economic engine.
A Culture of Discipline
 The culture of an organization has to be disciplined in all of the above
concepts. The organization must have the right people in the right seat
participating in a common mission while offering them some freedom and
responsibility to do great things within a framework. Collins offered an
interesting correlation between Dave Scott, the six time Hawaii Iron man
Triathlon Winner rinsing his cottage cheese to remove fat to a company’s
extreme diligence and intensity. Every organization must have a “stop
doing” list based on funding mechanisms and the Hedgehog Concept.
Technology Accelerators
 Good-to-great organizations must think differently about technology by
avoiding the latest trends. The technology must directly relate to the
Hedgehog Concept by fitting within the three circles. The technology
should be used as an accelerator of momentum but not the initiator.
The Flywheel and the Doom Loop
 In making the transformation from good-to-great research showed that
there was not a defining moment instead it was a calm, purposeful
endeavor of deciding what needed to be done to achieve greatness then
doing it in deliberate steps, one after another similarly to the turn of a
flywheel. This consistent forward motion over time will lead to a point of
breakthrough which authors describe as greatness.
5. Student reflection:
When thinking of my philosophy of leadership, I related best to the last story of the book
about a high school cross-country running team’s transformation from good to great.
The cross-country coaches questioned their success in stating they aren’t working any
harder than other teams. They viewed their current methods as simple. Their Hedgehog
Concept was they ran best at the end of workouts, races, seasons, and when it counts
the most. The coaches utilized this information purposefully in all they undertook. The
coaches eliminated the expensive fluff from the program by establishing that the right
runners wanted to run regardless of the fluff and the number of runners tripled in five
years. They built their program and their culture of discipline on the premise that running
is fun, racing is fun, improving is fun, and winning is fun. They did not establish the goal
of winning state championships rather they let the team see it for themselves thus
creating the team’s ownership of the win.
Often people say to me, I could never do what you do or get done all the things that you
get done. I never usually give these statements a thought because I don’t feel as though
I am doing anything out of the ordinary in comparison to others. Similarly to the crosscountry coaches, I have simply established my goals and priorities and set out to obtain
them striving not to let my family be a casualty of that goal obtainment. Against all odds
including nine years and seven colleges, I graduated with my Bachelors degree and
became a teacher. Attuned to Darwin Smith’s quote, “I never stopped trying to become
qualified for the job”; I have never stopped trying to become a qualified teacher. I crave
to learn more and become a better teacher. In becoming a better teacher, I feel I will
become a better leader. Currently, I am on track to earning a Master’s degree in
Educational Leadership. This was not my original goal rather a byproduct of trying to
become qualified. After analyzing Collin's leadership hierarchy, I believe I have the seed
to become a level 5 leader. I have been a Highly Capable Individual (Level 1)
throughout my life by making contributions to my education and my family. I have been
a Contributing Team Member (Level 2) in my early years of teaching working on group
objectives. Thus, I have shown that I can be a Competent Manager (Level 3) by
organizing people and resources when called upon by my administrators. Currently, I
see myself as developing into an Effective Leader (Level 4) by vigorously pursuing our
school vision and stimulating higher performance standards in others. Whether or not I
ever achieve Level 5 leadership status, I find immense promise in pursuing good-togreat concepts.
6. Other books written by this author in the last 15 years:
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras
The Startup Garden: How Growing a Business Grows You
by Tom Ehrenfeld and Jim Collins
The Last Best League: One Summer, One Season, One Dream
by Jim Collins