Good to Great..What a book it is..

I read the book Good to Great. It was prescribed to me by one of the Professors at Kelley when I sent a mail to her. And it turned out to be an amazing book. Many of the myths I had were shattered by the facts stated in the book. This book is the result of a 5 year research by Jim Collins and his team.

Here were the 3 main myths that I had:

1. CEOs of the best companies are larger than life personalities:
Ans: CEOs of some of the best turnarounds in the history are not charismatic people. They are demanding and they work as a fellow man to get the things done and they don’t want to have a 13th floor office to show the status.

2. We have to motivate people to get the things done:
Ans: If we have the right people at right positions, we need not motivate them. They will be motivated by the determination of the leader. They believe in him if the goals set are realistic and achievable. One need not blabber the motivational talk to get them aligned.

3. Strategy is the important part than people:
Ans: Totally wrong. Many turnarounds were made possible by hiring the best people and having a strategy for turnaround. So, the first thing in a business should be who to hire and not what and how. The who can decide what and how and when.

Anshu from NUS has got an interesting review on this. check it here.

There are many great points like these. So grab a copy of it if you want to go through all of them. I hope you guys will enjoy it alot.