Reflections from Good to Great and Beyond Great, part 1 
Striving for Success
Every owner and stockholder wants his or her company to succeed, right? We want to work in a good company. Most of us would like it to be a greatcompany if possible. Who would not?
Business leaders, the CEO’s and executives, all want to see their companies rise in stature and success. This may be rooted in a range of motivations. It can vary from:
A personal connection between performance and compensation—the more successful the company, the higher the executive pay.
to:
A passion for the mission of the company.
Success rests to a large extent on financial performance, especially in the “for-profit” world. It may have different measures and elements of emphasis, but the bottom line is important.
Non-profit organizations may look more to mission specific measures, but even they must pay attention to the financials if they are to remain in business.
In addition to the “bottom-line,” groups measure quality, customer satisfaction, market share, employee satisfaction and many other metrics. Tools such as balance scorecards are sometimes used to provide a well rounded accounting of how the company is really doing. Even so, none of this attention seems to dilute emphasis on financial profit and growth.
Jim Collins and his research team have done some interesting analysis of “great” organizations. The resulting book by Collins’ and team is Good to Great. It highlights important characteristics essential for a company to become truly great. Their research is based on actual financial performance and sustained success, objective measures that CEO’s relate to. The book is very popular. The data cannot be easily dismissed, nor would we want to. In our discussion, we want to learn from it…and more.
We will look at some of the basis of that analysis next time. We will also examine reflections from this author's book, Beyond Great. From the two books we will be able to pull some key lessons and principles.
Thanks,
Larry Meeker
President, Advanced Team Concepts
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