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Many have embraced the work of Jim Collins, whose Built to Last (with Jerry Porras) and Good to Great are enduring fare in leadership development circles. Mr. Collins has spent years discovering why it is that a few companies make astounding leaps to greatness while most that are similarly situated do not. Last year, he published a 35-page supplement entitled Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking is Not the Answer. This slim red volume custom-fits his seemingly simple, yet very powerful, framework to the sphere of nonprofits and government.
Why was it written? Because the author realized that over a third of his readers came from “non-business,” and they were sending him two messages: That his framework was valid, and that certain concepts did not apply in their environments. Collins turned his attention to the social sectors to find out why that was the case. This opening statement on the subject makes a lot of sense, and the implications for government are exciting.
The Hedgehog Concept concerns the intersection of three facts, a thorough understanding of which helps a disciplined organization develop the momentum that can propel it to sustained distinction. What are the facts? What you are deeply passionate about, what you can be the best in the world at, and what drives your resource engine. (In a business context, the latter becomes “what drives your economic engine.”)
Understanding that intersection enables the organization to figure out what should not be done—because it leads away from the core where those three facts overlap—as well as what ought to be done. Momentum is developed by “turning the flywheel,” or attracting believers -> building strength -> demonstrating results -> building the brand, which then enables the organization to attract more supporters, and so on.
The Good to Great concepts that didn’t work as well for non-business are instantly recognizable (“Get the right people on the bus and get the wrong people off the bus for poor performance”), and so are the barriers to high performance that we sometimes hug too tightly (“Until we fix the system, we can’t become great”). The remedy for the latter is the discipline of the Stockdale Paradox. Admiral James Stockdale, a POW in Vietnam for almost eight years, survived when others did not. How? "Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties - and confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."
We can use this! Strategic examples solve several problems, like how an organization whose outputs are hard to measure (such as The Cleveland Orchestra’s) can hold itself accountable and know that its performance is becoming superior. Well-designed graphics and summary tables exist solely to illuminate, and they do that, making this extension of Good to Great very hard to put down. It is challenging, not in the sense that it is difficult to read, but in the sense that sloppy or lazy thinking about difficulties is exposed as such.
For those who thirst to make a
difference, whether they be executives, first-line supervisors, or
individual contributors, this will be a stimulating read. As Jim Collins
says in closing, “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it
turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”
