WIN Wyoming and WIN the Rockies

Thought Bullets
for 
August 2003

Moving from good health to great health
Highlights from book by Jim Collins

Glen Whipple, Director of the Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service, highly recommended reading the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. While my copy of the book was sitting on the kitchen table waiting to be read, my nephew walked by and said, "Don’t you need to read the first book?" At first, I was impressed my nephew knew about Jim Collins’ first book, Built to Last. When I asked my nephew how he knew about the first book, he gave me one of his famous blank stares and then said, "No, I mean the book YOU need to read before you read this one, you know, the book called, Getting to Good." My nephew’s dry humor aside, I finally finished reading Good to Great and I want to share some of the highlights from the book with you. Jim Collins and a group of researchers set out to determine key factors associated with greatness in select U.S. companies. Their findings have direct ties to help us understand how we can move from "good health" to "great health."

• Greatness is not a function of circumstance. It is a matter of conscious choice (page 11).
• A former prisoner of war helped the researchers discover a key to greatness far more than any of the corporate strategies that were studied. The secret? Maintain an unwavering faith that you can and will prevail, regardless of difficulties that arise along your path (page 13). The author also refers to this trait as "ferocious resolve" (page 18).
• In today’s corporate world, much emphasis is placed on the importance of new technologies. New technologies are not new. Previous generations have all faced new technologies. The arrival of electricity, telephones, automobiles, radios, televisions, computers, etc. of all made dramatic impacts. How a company (and a person) chooses to implement new technologies is key to greatness, not the relentless chasing of new technology (page 15). A constant reliance on new technology is a liability, not an asset (page 159). Great companies became pioneers in the application of carefully selected technologies (page 162).
• Almost all leaders in the great companies studied were not larger-than-life heroes. On the contrary, they were seemingly ordinary people producing extraordinary results (page 28). The leaders displayed workmanlike diligence and were more plow horse than show horse (page 39).
• Great companies did not have a perfect tract record. But on the whole, they made many more good decisions than bad ones (page 69). To move from good health to great health, you do not have to make perfect health choices every time. You do need to make many more good choices than bad ones.
• Life is unfair. Sometimes you get a lucky break you don’t deserve, and sometimes you deserve a break and don’t get it. The important question is whether you come back from difficulties weakened, or stronger (pages 85, 86).
• One of the key factors to greatness is the ability to take a complex world and simplify it. The key is not to become a simpleton, but rather to have piercing insights that allow you to see what is essential and ignore the rest (page 91). Current nutritional advice and research can be very complex, but the principles of good nutrition are very simple.
• You can not motivate yourself or others. You can discover what ignites your passion (page 109).
• When it comes to greatness, "stop doing lists" may be more important than "to do lists." Systematically unplug things in your life that keep you from greatness (page 124). Remove the extraneous junk in your life (page 139).
• Although discipline is important for greatness, discipline by itself will not produce great results. The research team studied plenty of companies with tremendous discipline that marched right into disaster with "precision and in nicely formed lines" (page 126).
• When it comes to achieving greatness, there is no single-defining action, no solitary lucky break, no killer innovation, no revolution, no miracle moment. Greatness is a cumulative process achieved step by step, action by action, decision by decision (pages 165, 169). It is much harder to remain great, than it is to become great (page 204).

Source:
Collins, Jim. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Other Don’t. New York: Harper Collins Publishers; 2001.

Compiled by Betty Holmes, MS, RD, Regional Project Coordinator, WIN the Rockies;  bholmes@uwyo.edu

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