When budding entrepreneurs are looking for inspiration in growing their business a great place to start is a book written by Jim Collins “Good To Great”. If you’re too busy with all the challenges coming your way, here’s a summary of the key findings.
Leadership – have humility and a professional will. Charismatic leaders have an array of followers, quiet leaders have talented team (and that gives you continued momentum).
First who, then what – great companies get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off, then they work out where to go.
Confront the brutal facts – maintain unwavering faith that you will prevail whilst having the discipline to confront the brutal facts of the current reality.
The Hedgehog Concept – what you are deeply passionate about, what you can be the best at in the world, what drives your economic engine. Work out those three and take your company from good to great. In his book he describes the cunning fox who has lots of strategies and plans to catch the hedgehog. Every time he goes to catch the hedgehog, it curls up in a ball of spikes and out foxes the fox. The message? Foxes pursue many ends at the same time, scattered or diffused, operating on many different levels. Hedgehogs, on the other hand, simplify a complex world into a single organizing idea, a basic principle of concept that unifies and guides everything. Which are you?!
Culture of discipline – with disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy.
Technology accelerators – don’t use it to ignite transformation, use it as a tool to advance your cause.
Fly Wheel and Doom Loop – good to great doesn’t happen in one great leap. There is no defining action, no grand program, killer innovation, lucky break or miracle moment. Rather the process resembling relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel, building momentum, turn after turn until the breakthrough and beyond.
