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The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers
The vast majority of small businesses stay small—and not by choice. Only the most savvy and persistent—a tiny one tenth of one percent—break through to annual sales above $250 million. In The Breakthrough Company , Keith McFarland pinpoints how everyday companies become extraordinary, showing that luck is a negligible factor. Rather, breakthrough success turns out to be associated with a clearly identifiable set of strategies and skills that anyone in any business can emulate—from small startup to industry leader.
Encouraged by experts such as business legend Peter Drucker and Good to Great author Jim Collins to identify the drivers that enable a company to push past the entrepreneurial phase, McFarland spent five years building and analyzing the world’s largest growth-company performance database and interviewing more than 1,500 growth-company executives on four continents. His goal was to identify the secrets of breakthrough.
The Breakthrough Company is the result. Winnowing a study pool of more than 7,000 companies down to nine that have made the transition to major-player status, McFarland highlights real-world tools and myth-busting insights that can be used by anyone wanting his or her business to join this exclusive circle. Among the book’s
• Common wisdom holds that the founders and core entrepreneurial leaders of a company must step aside for the business to reach the next level. Not true—as long as founders “crown the company” instead of themselves.
• It’s not reckless to make ever-escalating bets on your company’s future, even going nose to nose with competitors many times your size. In fact, it turns out that the only safety comes in constantly upping the ante in exactly this way.
• A Business Bermuda Triangle does exist, gobbling up companies on the verge of breakthrough. Presented here are three ways to navigate this potentially deadly hazard successfully.
• However good you are—or think you are—you can’t do it alone. Learn how to surround your company with networks of outside resources, aka “scaffolding,” and how to enlist the aid of “insultants”—people who are willing to question a firm’s existing assumptions and ways of doing business.
With powerful and specific action steps concluding each chapter—and invaluable advice on virtually every page from business leaders who’ve taken their companies to extraordinary levels of growth and profitability— The Breakthrough Company is one of the most provocative, inspiring, and instructive business books you’ll ever read.
Encouraged by experts such as business legend Peter Drucker and Good to Great author Jim Collins to identify the drivers that enable a company to push past the entrepreneurial phase, McFarland spent five years building and analyzing the world’s largest growth-company performance database and interviewing more than 1,500 growth-company executives on four continents. His goal was to identify the secrets of breakthrough.
The Breakthrough Company is the result. Winnowing a study pool of more than 7,000 companies down to nine that have made the transition to major-player status, McFarland highlights real-world tools and myth-busting insights that can be used by anyone wanting his or her business to join this exclusive circle. Among the book’s
• Common wisdom holds that the founders and core entrepreneurial leaders of a company must step aside for the business to reach the next level. Not true—as long as founders “crown the company” instead of themselves.
• It’s not reckless to make ever-escalating bets on your company’s future, even going nose to nose with competitors many times your size. In fact, it turns out that the only safety comes in constantly upping the ante in exactly this way.
• A Business Bermuda Triangle does exist, gobbling up companies on the verge of breakthrough. Presented here are three ways to navigate this potentially deadly hazard successfully.
• However good you are—or think you are—you can’t do it alone. Learn how to surround your company with networks of outside resources, aka “scaffolding,” and how to enlist the aid of “insultants”—people who are willing to question a firm’s existing assumptions and ways of doing business.
With powerful and specific action steps concluding each chapter—and invaluable advice on virtually every page from business leaders who’ve taken their companies to extraordinary levels of growth and profitability— The Breakthrough Company is one of the most provocative, inspiring, and instructive business books you’ll ever read.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 15, 2008
56 people are currently reading
411 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
July 25, 2008
The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers
Keith R. McFarland
Crown Business
During a casual conversation with Jim Collins several years ago, McFarland wondered aloud what could be learned about great companies closer to the time of their entrepreneurial breakthrough. "What a great research question," Collins replied. Later, McFarland formulated three questions that would guide and inform research for The Breakthrough Company:
1. Why do most companies start small and stay that way?
2. What is special about the handful of companies that successfully "break through" the entrepreneurial stage of development?
3. What can a leader do to ensure that his or her company maximizes its chances for a breakthrough?
McFarland and his associates created and analyzed of more than 7,000 of America's fastest growing private and public companies. They spoke with more than 1,500 key executives and reviewed and cataloged more than 5,600 articles. Moreover, they conducted intensive 90-day studies with 52 firms ranging in size from $9-million to $-billion in annual sales. The book also suggests what leaders can do to help their organizations maximize their potential for breakthrough. "We began to see the story of the breakthrough company not as a journey from an entrepreneurial firm to a professionally managed firm, but from a small or mid-sized entrepreneurial firm to entrepreneurial enterprise.” That is certainly true of the nine exemplary companies on which McFarland focuses in this book: ADTRAN, Chicos FAS, Express Personnel, Fastenal, Intuit, Paychex, Polaris, SAS Institute, and The Staubach Company." McFarland devotes a separate chapter to each of several transitions, citing real people and real situations in one or more of the nine companies to illustrate the given point.
I especially appreciate McFarland's brilliant use of various reader-friendly devices such as "The Key Ideas" section in most chapters, accompanied by "Squirts from the Grapefruit" (i.e. surprising revelations), "Breakthrough in Practice Tips," and boxed key ideas. This is the first business book I have read in which Charlie Chan is cited as a source. In one of his films, the star detective observes that surprising findings are "like squirt from grapefruit juice." McFarland acknowledges general "squirts" as well as a few that are relevant to each transition. For example, in Chapter 5 ("Building Company Character"): "Some breakthrough companies had formal values statements and some didn't. The creation of a formal statement of values did not seem to be in any way related to the development of strong company character." McFarland also includes seven mini-case studies of companies in which their real-world situations also illustrate his key points.
I wholly agree with him that that “there are no permanent breakthrough companies - only companies that engage in practices leading to long-term success. And just as it's possible for an everyday company to achieve breakthrough performance, it's equally possible for a breakthrough company to, without realizing it, fall back into life as an everyday firm." No company can afford to "crown" any of its individuals rather than the entire enterprise, rest on its laurels, play it safe, and allow its character to become a set of platitudes "that no one believes in." Instead, a company must continually find new and better ways to meet customer needs, to reduce costs, and to increase the speed of effective execution.
The Chief Learning Officer: Driving Value Within a Changing Organization Through Learning and Development
Tamar Elkeles and Jack Phillips
Butterworth-Heinemann/Elsevier
Tamar Elkeles and Phillips take various challenges into full account while responding to key questions such as these, devoting a separate chapter to each:
1. Insofar as the CLO is concerned, what are the most significant trends and issues?
2. How to devise a program that links strategy to learning?
3. How to set an appropriate investment level?
4. How to align the learning enterprise with business needs?
5. How to complete a transition to performance improvement?
6. How to create value-based delivery?
7. How to manage for value?
8. How to demonstrate and quantify the ROI of learning?
9. How to manage talent for value?
10. How to establish and then sustain productive management relationships?
Although this book was primarily written for chief learning officers (with or without a formal title), I think it is also a "must read" for other C-level executives and especially for board members and CEOs. I agree with Peter Drucker that everyone involved in an organization (whatever its size or nature may be) must be knowledge workers. Only then can effective leadership be developed at all levels and in all areas, thereby ensuring that the organization can achieve and then sustain a competitive advantage. The combined costs of failing to do that are incalculable. Elkeles and Phillips agree with Derek Bok's comment: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
Keith R. McFarland
Crown Business
During a casual conversation with Jim Collins several years ago, McFarland wondered aloud what could be learned about great companies closer to the time of their entrepreneurial breakthrough. "What a great research question," Collins replied. Later, McFarland formulated three questions that would guide and inform research for The Breakthrough Company:
1. Why do most companies start small and stay that way?
2. What is special about the handful of companies that successfully "break through" the entrepreneurial stage of development?
3. What can a leader do to ensure that his or her company maximizes its chances for a breakthrough?
McFarland and his associates created and analyzed of more than 7,000 of America's fastest growing private and public companies. They spoke with more than 1,500 key executives and reviewed and cataloged more than 5,600 articles. Moreover, they conducted intensive 90-day studies with 52 firms ranging in size from $9-million to $-billion in annual sales. The book also suggests what leaders can do to help their organizations maximize their potential for breakthrough. "We began to see the story of the breakthrough company not as a journey from an entrepreneurial firm to a professionally managed firm, but from a small or mid-sized entrepreneurial firm to entrepreneurial enterprise.” That is certainly true of the nine exemplary companies on which McFarland focuses in this book: ADTRAN, Chicos FAS, Express Personnel, Fastenal, Intuit, Paychex, Polaris, SAS Institute, and The Staubach Company." McFarland devotes a separate chapter to each of several transitions, citing real people and real situations in one or more of the nine companies to illustrate the given point.
I especially appreciate McFarland's brilliant use of various reader-friendly devices such as "The Key Ideas" section in most chapters, accompanied by "Squirts from the Grapefruit" (i.e. surprising revelations), "Breakthrough in Practice Tips," and boxed key ideas. This is the first business book I have read in which Charlie Chan is cited as a source. In one of his films, the star detective observes that surprising findings are "like squirt from grapefruit juice." McFarland acknowledges general "squirts" as well as a few that are relevant to each transition. For example, in Chapter 5 ("Building Company Character"): "Some breakthrough companies had formal values statements and some didn't. The creation of a formal statement of values did not seem to be in any way related to the development of strong company character." McFarland also includes seven mini-case studies of companies in which their real-world situations also illustrate his key points.
I wholly agree with him that that “there are no permanent breakthrough companies - only companies that engage in practices leading to long-term success. And just as it's possible for an everyday company to achieve breakthrough performance, it's equally possible for a breakthrough company to, without realizing it, fall back into life as an everyday firm." No company can afford to "crown" any of its individuals rather than the entire enterprise, rest on its laurels, play it safe, and allow its character to become a set of platitudes "that no one believes in." Instead, a company must continually find new and better ways to meet customer needs, to reduce costs, and to increase the speed of effective execution.
The Chief Learning Officer: Driving Value Within a Changing Organization Through Learning and Development
Tamar Elkeles and Jack Phillips
Butterworth-Heinemann/Elsevier
Tamar Elkeles and Phillips take various challenges into full account while responding to key questions such as these, devoting a separate chapter to each:
1. Insofar as the CLO is concerned, what are the most significant trends and issues?
2. How to devise a program that links strategy to learning?
3. How to set an appropriate investment level?
4. How to align the learning enterprise with business needs?
5. How to complete a transition to performance improvement?
6. How to create value-based delivery?
7. How to manage for value?
8. How to demonstrate and quantify the ROI of learning?
9. How to manage talent for value?
10. How to establish and then sustain productive management relationships?
Although this book was primarily written for chief learning officers (with or without a formal title), I think it is also a "must read" for other C-level executives and especially for board members and CEOs. I agree with Peter Drucker that everyone involved in an organization (whatever its size or nature may be) must be knowledge workers. Only then can effective leadership be developed at all levels and in all areas, thereby ensuring that the organization can achieve and then sustain a competitive advantage. The combined costs of failing to do that are incalculable. Elkeles and Phillips agree with Derek Bok's comment: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
May 14, 2012
Great book to read in a group of co-workers if your organization is going through a strategy shift or if you are starting a completely new business.
September 4, 2022
This book offers insight into what it takes to grow a business. It does not target start-ups, but rather companies of moderate size that wish to continue to grow. Anyone in a leadership position in a moderate-size organization can benefit from the principles outlined in this book.
Based on meticulous research, the author compares nine companies that displayed long-term growth with industry competitors that stalled. Similar in structure to Jim Collins' business classic Good to Great, eight principles of breakthrough are offered.
Three of my favorite quotes from the book help to frame these breakthrough principles:
"Progress always involves risk, you can't steal second base and keep your foot on first base." ~ Frederick Wilcox
"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails." ~ Bertha Calloway
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." ~ Charles Darwin
Read this book today and share it with other leaders in your organization. Apply its principles and long-term growth is possible, both for you and your current organization—or the next one you join that aspires to build something great!
Access Gene Babon's reviews of books on Business Leadership and Business Strategy at Pinterest.
Based on meticulous research, the author compares nine companies that displayed long-term growth with industry competitors that stalled. Similar in structure to Jim Collins' business classic Good to Great, eight principles of breakthrough are offered.
Three of my favorite quotes from the book help to frame these breakthrough principles:
"Progress always involves risk, you can't steal second base and keep your foot on first base." ~ Frederick Wilcox
"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails." ~ Bertha Calloway
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." ~ Charles Darwin
Read this book today and share it with other leaders in your organization. Apply its principles and long-term growth is possible, both for you and your current organization—or the next one you join that aspires to build something great!
Access Gene Babon's reviews of books on Business Leadership and Business Strategy at Pinterest.
October 29, 2017
First: My new dream job is "insultant." (I'm only like half-facetious about that.)
The main problem with this book is that it's repetitive. It tends to say the same things over and over again. It's also a bit redundant. And there are a few extraneous parts, with a little superfluity packed on.
That's not to say there isn't anything good or useful in it. In fact, I found quite a few sentences to underline (more than I thought I would when I started it), and some things to think about. It's just…the author could've taken out about 100 pages and been as effective, in my opinion.
The main problem with this book is that it's repetitive. It tends to say the same things over and over again. It's also a bit redundant. And there are a few extraneous parts, with a little superfluity packed on.
That's not to say there isn't anything good or useful in it. In fact, I found quite a few sentences to underline (more than I thought I would when I started it), and some things to think about. It's just…the author could've taken out about 100 pages and been as effective, in my opinion.
February 14, 2019
Audio book. Not a bad book but there was nothing "breakthrough" for me. To be fair, though, I didn't check the date before I checked this out of the library and it is quite old (in terms of business, etc.). Wouldn't recommend it just because material could be outdated for people looking for current ideas to help their business. I don't think there's any tried and true hints and/or tips that are "timeless".
December 28, 2018
Awesome book for any small business owner.
July 3, 2021
Very good book for small company owners / managers . Must read.
October 16, 2023
No big data , just stories and that too heard once.
Not impressive
Not impressive
January 1, 2024
Solid advice backed up by research on what makes growing businesses successful.
February 22, 2017
"Very good, although still shy of "Built to last" or "Good to great".
October 3, 2011
GREAT; as a betting man myself, i loved Chapter 4 'Upping the Ante'. It covers the psychology of betting, why gambling gives betting a bad name and physics of bets, types of bets (i.e. market bets, process bets) and the art of linking bets together to build reald advantage over your competitors.
GOOD; The author chose companies from the Inc 500 list in order to analyze the key features of success, i.e. becoming a breakthrough company. Here the author chose well since most of the books concentrate either on very small companies or very large companies while neglecting the Inc 500.
BAD; Examples of successful companies/case studies suffer from two BIG problems. One, the selection problem. Do you want to find a business case where betting big and capturing market share, despite losing money was successful? Sure, no problem. We can find causes to support our theory. Do you want to find a business case where betting big and capturing market share while losing money leads to failure? Again, we can find it. No matter what business philosophy, we can select companies supporting our theory. Two, the attribution problem. What we attribute success may not be correct at all. The very same attribute might lead to failure in an another company.
If you enjoy case studies, this might me a good read for you. I don't. Chapter 4 on betting saved the book my four star rating.
GOOD; The author chose companies from the Inc 500 list in order to analyze the key features of success, i.e. becoming a breakthrough company. Here the author chose well since most of the books concentrate either on very small companies or very large companies while neglecting the Inc 500.
BAD; Examples of successful companies/case studies suffer from two BIG problems. One, the selection problem. Do you want to find a business case where betting big and capturing market share, despite losing money was successful? Sure, no problem. We can find causes to support our theory. Do you want to find a business case where betting big and capturing market share while losing money leads to failure? Again, we can find it. No matter what business philosophy, we can select companies supporting our theory. Two, the attribution problem. What we attribute success may not be correct at all. The very same attribute might lead to failure in an another company.
If you enjoy case studies, this might me a good read for you. I don't. Chapter 4 on betting saved the book my four star rating.
February 14, 2012
It's funny, I've picked up several books in 2012 that didn't grab me, and this is the first one that did - a business book, no less (which I have a love-hate relationship with, because I always assume I won't enjoy reading them). This book was written to answer the question, how do some start-up companies "breakthrough" from being small companies (the entreprenurial stage) to being / staying successful as they grow bigger and more complex? The types of things that make a small company (and the entreprenuers who start it) successful - agillity, nimbleness, flexibility, intimate customer connections, blind optimism - are simply not possible in the same way once a company grows past a certain point, and so those strengths must morph into others that can be sustained at the larger scale. The author is an experienced businessperson who conducted extensive research across 7000 companies in order to explain the success factors, which he found were shared by 9 companies that he used as case studies (and not mastered by 9 similar companies he used as control / comparison examples). The book is enjoyable to read, interesting, and the take-aways are quite actionable (and not at all dated even though the book is nearly 5 years old).
July 4, 2019
It's funny how after reading Good to Great I wondered about how smaller companies breakthrough. Mcfarland had the same thought and wrote this book. As far as a business book there were interesting ideas that could be used regardless of what size your company is and whether or not it's for - profit. One of the best ideas that Mcfarland investigates in the book is that of scaffolding. Having a network outside of the business that you can turn to.
March 20, 2009
While I am not a big fan of carrying over trendy corporate practices into the church just becasue they're "successul," I must admit I found a lot of good ideas in this book that will help me lead better, as well as equip our ministry teams to function even more powerfully. A great read; very informative; many tools for one to use in any organization.
March 23, 2008
I loved this book...but most people will not. The reason that I loved it was because of it's relevance to my everyday business life and the challenges I perpetually confront. I would bored out of my mind if I had read it a couple of years ago...but it struck a chord during this time in my life.
January 5, 2010
I checked this out from the library and definitely plan to buy it. I LOVED Good to Great. It was one of the most useful books I studied in graduate school. This is closer to my family's small business life.
August 25, 2011
I took away some GREAT and major points from this book, but it wasn't really applicable to me as a super SMALL business owner. Maybe if I intended to own a huge world renowned company one day, I would give this 5 stars. And not skim half of it.
December 1, 2011
I read this at the behest of my boss. There's really nothing terribly new here, but it is a good compilation of the things that we all "know" about what makes groups of humans successful, but seem to forget.
March 17, 2008
So far, so good. But, while the book is long on research methodology, it is short on revelations.
August 21, 2008
So far, so good!
August 27, 2008
Loved this book!
September 2, 2008
This was more of an educational endeavor to support my own efforts. Excellent case studies from other companies that found incredible success.
February 23, 2009
Great look at a few companies that are doing things "right". Right by they workers and right by their shareholders.
April 9, 2009
Few useful case scenarios.
June 17, 2009
The author hits this topic squarely. He delivers valuable insights for mid-market managers wanting to step up their business.
May 9, 2011
Good business book. Some interesting points, some less-interesting points. If you're entrepreneurially minded you may enjoy this more.
Read
July 24, 2011A well-written and well-researched guide on how to make a growing company stay successful through its transition to major player. Keith McFarland is clear and thorough. Very informative.
Want to read
August 24, 20117 ribu saja (edisi indo), dari www.granadabooks.com
March 23, 2012
Outstanding look at what makes some companies great and leaves others stuck in first gear. Anything Keith McFarland has written is worth a serious read.
March 30, 2013
A should-read book on organizational behavior and design for knowledge workers, managers, executives, and entrepreneurs.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews