Good To Great
Chapter 9: From Good to Great to
Built to Last
Team 3
Tiffany Oswald
Kristen Steinbrecher
McLean Jones
Matt Youngs
Amye Cervenka
Built to Last
• Based on a six year research project from the
early 90s
• Answered the question as to what it takes to
build a great company from the ground up
• Companies were compared that endured over
the decades or even centuries
• Built to Last was out of the picture when
researching Good to Great, to achieve minimal
bias from previous work
Comparing the Two
• The two studies build on each other and can be
used together
• Good to Great as seen as a prequel to Built to
Last even though it was written later, says the
author
• The two books can also coincide with each other
• Established Company, Good to Great Concepts,
Sustained Great Results, Built to Last Concepts,
Enduring Great Company
Good to Great in the Early Stages of
Built to Last
• Wal-mart
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Began in 1945 as a single dime store
Built second store seven years later
Took 25 years to build 38 stores
From 1970-2000 had 3000 stores and over $150
billion in revenue
Good to Great in the Early Stages of
Built to Last
• Hewlett Packard
▫ Based on who not what
▫ The first founding meeting was on August 23, 1937
▫ After WWII, hired a bunch of people streaming
out of government labs
▫ “No company can grow revenues consistently
faster than its ability to get enough of the right
people to implement that growth and still become
a great company.”
Core Ideology : The Extra
Dimension of Enduring Greatness
Bill Hewlett
• Interview with ole Bill Hewlett
• H.P. and their set of Core Values
• The Extra Dimension?
A Brief Note
• Enduring great companies don’t exist merely to
deliver returns to shareholders….
Merck Cares
• Cure for the blind
• Consistently outperformed the market from
1946-2000
• Doesn’t consider their ultimate reason for being
as making money
A Note on Core Values
• Essential for enduring greatness
• But…
• Doesn’t seem to matter what these core values
are…please explain
The Walt Disney Story
• Walt was a Kansas boy who moved to LA to get
into the movie biz
• Couldn’t get hired
• Set up a camera in a garage and made his own
cartoons
• Walt opens up Disney World and the rest of the
Disney Parks
• Disney’s core values
Good Bhags, Bad Bhags
Four Key Ideas
• Each of the Good to Great findings enables all
four key ideas from built to last
1. Clock Building, Not Time Telling
• “Build an organization that can endure and
adapt through multiple generations of leaders
and life cycles.”(pg.197)
• The opposite of being built around a single
leader or single idea
2. Genius of AND
• “Embrace both extremes or a number of
dimensions at the same time. Instead of
choosing A or B, figure out how to have A AND B
– purpose AND profit, continuity AND change,
freedom AND responsibility, etc.”(pg.198)
3. Core Ideology
• “Instill core values and core purpose as
principles to guide decisions and inspire people
throughout the organization over a long period
of time.”(pg.198)
• Don’t let one factor drive you such as money
4. Preserve the Core/ Stimulate
Progress
• “Preserve the core ideology as an anchor point
while stimulating change, improvement,
innovation, and renewal in everything else.
Change practices and strategies while holding
core values and purpose fixed. Set and achieve
BHAGs consistent with the core
ideology.”(pg.198)
BHAG
• Pronounced bee-hag
• Short for Big Hairy Audacious Goal
Three points in a BHAG
• What you are deeply passionate about…
• What you can be best in the world at…
• What drives your economic engine…
• “Remember, it is much easier to become great
than to remain great. Ultimately, the consistent
application of both studies, one building on the
other, gives the best chance for creating
greatness that lasts.”(pg.204)
Why Greatness?
• Student asked “Why should I try to build a great
company? What if I just want to be successful?”
(p.205)
▫ “It is no harder to build something great than to
build something good.” (p.205)
 High School cross-country example
▫ The search for meaningful work
Not why, but how…
• “The real question is not, “Why greatness?” but
“What work makes you feel compelled to create
greatness?”
• Becoming a Level 5 leader
▫ Meaningful work
▫ Responsibilities line up with personal three circles