Choosing to be Great takes discipline.

The thing that struck me the most about Great by Choice – Jim Collins & Morten T. Hansen’s handbook on choosing greatness over mediocrity – was the sheer weight of the research involved.  All good books undoubtedly require a lot of research, even those based purely on fictional characters and events require some level of research to build plausibility.

It was the minutiae of the research that impressed me; the dedication to trawling through years of corporate records for indications of luck, discipline, creativity, risk and reward.

The basic premise of the book entails taking two like coins and turning them over and over under a high wattage desk lamp, looking for irregularities and differences.  What is it that makes one coin infinitely more valuable than the other?  Why, when flipped, does one coin seem to come up heads, the other tails?  What dictates whether that was a lucky flip?

The coins are company comparison cases; two similar businesses in field and opportunity over a set timeframe – one experiencing extraordinary results of greatness, the other fading into mediocrity if not complete obscurity.

The research examines the key physiognomies of each company and why one rose to fly in the face of luck; maximising their returns regardless of events being fortuitously beneficial or unexpected calamity.  The insights that this research uncovered formed a set of characteristics that those who choose to be Great exemplify.

 

Key concepts that I took away from this reading:
 

• Choosing to be Great takes discipline and a consistent approach to vision, mission and execution.
• A leader’s job is to set out for their team firm guidelines about how far they need to travel each day; set boundaries and targets so they don’t overreach or underachieve, and make sure they have reserves for whatever the next day brings.
• The most effective creativity is that which is based on evidence and facts.  Research and pragmatic understanding of a situation helps with strong and sensible decision making. 
• Innovation must be timed so that it happens at the right point in the curve.  Innovation should meet market demand rather than pre-empt it; crest with the tide rather than after it.  Learn how to experiment so that riding a large wave of innovation is simply the culmination of many smaller test runs.
• Luck will find you; it is an absolute certainly in a chaotic business environment.  It’s what we do with our luck and how we prepare for that luck (good or bad) that counts.

Out of all of the concepts, this was the kicker; keep an eye open for the people who will be game changers for the company.  Out of all of the strategic and methodical plays a business can make, finding and keeping Great people is the single most important one.