Kathleen’s Reviews > Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't > Status Update

I will admit I laughed at loud at the “media coverage of the hatching egg” metaphor. “Egg achieves sudden breakthrough! Becomes chicken overnight!” 😆 🐣

Well, I’m going to be underwhelmed if this whole Flywheel concept is just: “diligently continue to celebrate and share incremental wins”

Unsurprisingly, technology was found to be best applied as an accelerant of great companies’ core ambitions. I found the point on lack of interest / fear of competitors more significant: great companies are less concerned with keeping up than achieving their own standard fot “best in the world”

These are key segments, but they make me uncomfortable. It’s too easy to fall into the trap - without the right people? - to mistake simplicity or discipline as virtues in their own right. Collins’ analyses prove that the simplicity OF THE CORE CONCEPT and adherence to THE CORE CONCEPT matters. It’s human nature to take comfort in stability, even when it is damaging

Stockdale Paradox: Remain committed to a successful long-term outcome. Pragmatically confront short-term challenges

Knowing your data, but also setting up systems such that glaring conclusions from data can’t help but hit you in the face. Important to transparently track key market trends and business drivers to know when to pivot

Reminiscent of many points on talent density later made in Hastings & Meyer’s No Rules Rules

I’d agree that at senior levels, you want management that needs coaching rather than direction. Perhaps this was novel at the time Collins first wrote. But now I wonder if we’ve pivoted too far in the other direction to assume that all good people need NO direction. Which ends up a serious disservice to a semiskilled or junior workforce

Beryl Markham quote… strong start 😉 Appreciate the explanation of the research methods underpinning the chosen companies; reminds me of Challenger Sale and a similarly empirical approach to identifying “what works” in a social context. So far I’m clocking Disciplined People, Disciplined Thinking, Disciplined Action. Hope the last part isn’t a bummer 😅