Bookshelf

A business book recommendation from my dear friend Laurie, worth every second spent on it. I think I’ve written down the longest list of take-aways ever from any book I’ve read. Data-driven, thoroughly researched – some say economics isn’t a real science, but this is definitely close. 

What is it about? The title says it all, really. Collins and his big team of researchers analyzed 11 huge companies which met their set criteria of having made a leap from an average success (“good”) to a hugely successful company (“great”) in order to find out what those companies, and especially their current leaders, did right. Simple and catchy mantras like “first who, then what”, “confront the brutal facts”, “take disciplined action”, “show personal humility but professional strong will”, “debate rigorously but unite behind the decision”, “do one thing right, don’t lose yourself in many areas”, “technology is only an accelerator”, “there’s no overnight success, just breakthroughs created by constantly intensifying momentum”, “it doesn’t matter which values a company has, but it does that they exist and are preserved”, and so on, will stay with me for long.