This concluding chapter connects the Good to Great research with Collinsâ earlier work, Built to Last. Good to Great answers the question of how to become great; Built to Last answers how to sustain greatness over generations. Together, they provide a roadmap from mediocrity to enduring excellence.
Good to Great and Built to Last are complementary works that together form a more complete picture. Good to Great is about the transition from mediocrity to excellence. Built to Last is about sustaining excellence once you achieve it.
Good to Great Making the leap from good performance to great performance
Built to Last Sustaining great performance and building an enduring company
Think of Good to Great as the prequel to Built to Last. First you must become great; then you work on enduring.
Built to Last discovered that enduring great companies have a core ideologyâcore values and core purposeâthat remains fixed while their strategies and practices adapt to a changing world. This is the âpreserve the core / stimulate progressâ dynamic.
Preserve the Core: Core values and purpose remain constant. These are the timeless, enduring principles that guide the organization.
Stimulate Progress: Everything elseâstrategies, practices, structures, systemsâcan and must change in response to the changing world.
The good-to-great concepts provide the foundation upon which to build endurance. But to last, companies must discover their core ideology and maintain it even as they adapt.
Built to Last introduced the concept of BHAGsâambitious goals that energize and focus an organization. Good-to-great companies used BHAGs, but their BHAGs emerged from understanding (the Hedgehog Concept), not bravado.
Hedgehog-Informed BHAGs:
Bravado BHAGs:
Collins presents the complete framework for going from good to great to built to last. The good-to-great concepts stack upon each other, and the built-to-last concepts provide the capstone for endurance.
Stage 1: Disciplined People
Stage 2: Disciplined Thought
Stage 3: Disciplined Action
Stage 4: Building Greatness
Stage 5: Built to Last (Endurance)
The research team wrestled with a fundamental question: Does it matter? Is building a great company worth the effort? Collins concludes that it does matterânot just for financial returns, but for the meaning and fulfillment of human work.
âThe point is not that we should âaddâ meaning to our work but, rather, that we should do work that is already inherently meaningful. The builders of greatness were satisfied with nothing less.â â Jim Collins
The good-to-great companies didnât achieve greatness for the sake of fame or fortuneâmany of their leaders shunned both. They achieved greatness because of an inner drive toward excellence, toward meaning, toward making a contribution.
While good-to-great companies generated tremendous financial returns, the research found that money was rarely the primary motivation. Great companies see profit as necessaryâlike oxygen for a living organismâbut not the purpose of existence.
Profit is essentialâyou canât survive without it. But no great companyâs primary purpose is to generate profit. Purpose transcends mere money-making:
Collins concludes with an important observation: the research is never truly finished. The good-to-great journey is ongoing for any organization that aspires to greatness. The concepts are tools, not guarantees.
âGreatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline.â â Jim Collins
The path from good to great to built to last is available to any organizationâbusiness, social sector, or individualâwilling to embrace these principles with rigor and discipline over sustained time.