Good To Great

There are a few management books that keep popping up among the blogosphere. Good to great is one that consistently stands near the top of those lists.

Good to Great analyzes hundreds of companies over decades and looks for the companies that outperform the market by wide margins over the course of at least a decade. After all of their research, they dwindled the list of companies that became "great" down to thirteen. Finally, they looked at these thirteen companies and tried to find the common thread that led them to achieve such stellar results. That common thread is distilled into 200 pages of wisdom.

While most of the details and insights are targeted towards those in management, and therefore I am unable to actually verify any of the results, they mostly make sense. In fact, many of the recent "how to run a start up" articles point to or allude to much of the wisdom Collins finds. For example, find the best people first, then worry about where to take them. You constantly hear about "talent talent talent" as the biggest problem for almost any issue, which become non-issues if you have the right people.

While I'm only starting to get into things like interviewing, recruitment, and some management issues at a very small scale, Good to Great gives an excellent starting post on how to run any organization. Highly recommended.