From Good To Great To Gone
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Free Download - Do You Promote from Within? By Tom Lemanski |
The first six weeks of 2009 were not kind to the reputation of Jim Collins' business bible, Good To Great. Performance issues with at least five of the eleven chronicled Good to Great companies have hit the headlines. G2G financial service companies Wells Fargo and Fannie Mae are seeing their darkest days.
On January 9, 2009 Walgreens recently announced the layoff of 1,000 salaried workers.
The struggles of Nucor, the G2G steel company, were featured on the February 15 60 Minutes episode. But that was not the biggest casualty from The Great Eleven.
On January 16, Circuit City Stores, Inc. announced that it will seek Bankruptcy Court approval to begin the process to liquidate the assets of the company.
So we're down to 10 Good To Great companies. while others are posting less than great results. No one ever claimed that sustained greatness would be easy. But the sudden liquidation of a text-book great company is shocking nonetheless.
If not Greatness, then what?
Do we put the red bible for business greatness permanently back on the shelf and search for a new bible? As I have pointed out in previous briefings on pursuing greatness, the Good To Great model was a fit for eleven publicly traded companies, but it is NOT easily embraced by many wannabes.
The book's opening concept: Good is the Enemy of Great is so inspiring. its easy for competitive leaders to get caught up in the notion. At least until they discover they lack the leadership for a committed, ongoing pursuit.
Good To Great's research delivers potentially valuable insight. Their Great Eleven had a great run, by any standards.
Perhaps its is unfair to raise any business book to bible status. That said, allow me to suggest some different perspectives on pursuing greatness and/or excellence. Not new bibles. Just more balanced insight.
The two books on the right examine some eye opening pitfalls to the aforementioned inspired pursuits of greatness. For those who do strategic thinking, consider
* The Paradox of Excellence: How Great Performance Can Kill Your Business by David Mosby and Michael Weissman: A look at how continuing to satisfy raised customer expectations can do more harm than good.
* The Myth of Excellence: Why Great Companies Never Try to Be the Best at Everything, by Fred Crawford (Author), Ryan Mathews:nIt takes Tom Peter's concepts of excellence and refines them with some practical advise on how to avoid mis-allocating scarce resources.
I am occasionally sought as a speaker by aspiring Good To Great organizations. In most every instance, I find that the well intentioned company is not ready to commit to all of the book's principles. They're hoping to be inspired to greatness by a keynote presentation. If only it could be that easy! I can typically flush out that their noble intentions are merely flavor-of-the-month initiatives. In the words of Frank Sinatra, they are destined to be "riding high in April, shot down in May." The first clue can be the obvious presence of high profile CEO who is unlikely to reach Level 5 status. In these cases, I recommend that we avoid wasting everyone's time. "As funny as it may seem, some people get their kicks stompin' on a dream."
G2G author Jim Collins pointed out how most don't pursue greatness because its "all too easy to settle for good". Now sadly, Circuit City would simply settle for solvency.
From Good To Great To Gone - To learn more about this author, visit Tom Lemanski's Website.
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development. He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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