A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great

Turning the Flywheel

A companion guidebook to the number-one bestselling Good to Great, focused on implementation of the flywheel concept, one of Jim Collins’ most memorable ideas that has been used across industries and the social sectors, and with startups.

Jim Collins is a student of companies – great ones, good ones, weak ones, failed ones – from young start-ups to venerable sesquicentenarians. The author of the national bestseller Good to Great and co-author of Built to Last, he serves as a teacher to leaders throughout the corporate and social sectors. His most recent book is Great by Choice, a look at why some companies thrive in uncertain times. His work has been featured in Fortune, Business Week, The Economist, USA Today, and Harvard Business Review. You can find more information about Jim and his work at his e-teaching site, www.jimcollins.com.

__________________ 
 
*From the author of the multi-million-copy bestseller Good to Great* 
 
‘No matter what your walk of life, no matter how big or small your enterprise, no matter whether it’s for-profit or nonprofit, no matter whether you’re CEO or a unit leader, the question stands, How does your flywheel turn?’ – JIM COLLINS 
__________________ 
 
The key to business success is not a single innovation or one plan. It is the act of turning the flywheel, slowly gaining momentum and eventually reaching a breakthrough. Building upon the flywheel concept introduced in his groundbreaking classic Good to Great, Jim Collins teaches readers how to create their own flywheel, how to accelerate the flywheel’s momentum, and how to stay on the flywheel in shifting markets and during times of turbulence. 
 
Combining research from his Good to Great labs and case studies from organisations like Amazon, Vanguard, and the Cleveland Clinic which have turned their flywheels with outstanding results, Collins demonstrates that successful organisations can disrupt the world around them – and reach unprecedented success – by employing the flywheel concept.

Uncertainty, Chaos and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All

Great by Choice

Jim Collins, author of the international bestseller, Good to Great, returns with an explanation of the principles of a great business – one that can withstand the economic instability we face today.

Jim Collins ... is the most influential management thinker alive

A sensible, well-timed and precisely targeted message for companies shaken by macroeconomic crises

Jim Collins has built a reputation as something of a myth buster ... This book is recommended

“Luck is not a strategy” the authors conclude. What determines any organization’s success is how it prepares for both good and bad luck. They call this getting a “positive return” on luck and, if Good to Great’s four million-plus sales are anything to go by, this idea will be embedded in corporate speak before you know it

Philip Delves Broughton, author of What They Teach you At Harvard Business School

The fascinating detail of the book is its attempt to engage with the role of luck in the success of an enterprise and its finding that they become great by choice rather than chance

If you want to understand what it takes to run a great company in any circumstances and you admire brilliant analysis and a clear, evocative writing style, then Great By Choice is worth five stars out of five

The findings are quite staggering. Many of the assumptions we have made about managing in these challenging times are questioned and often found wanting … The book really does provide a new prospective on leadership

THE NEW QUESTION 
Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns with another groundbreaking work, this time to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research, buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins and his colleague, Morten Hansen, enumerate the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times. 
 
THE NEW STUDY 
Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Collins's prior work by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today. With a team of more than twenty researchers, Collins and Hansen studied companies that rose to greatness - beating their industry indexes by a minimum of ten times over fifteen years - in environments characterized by big forces and rapid shifts that leaders could not predict or control. The research team then contrasted these "10X companies" to a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to achieve greatness in similarly extreme environments. 
 
THE NEW FINDINGS 
The study results were full of provocative surprises. Such as: 
* The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid. 
* Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card in a chaotic and uncertain world; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline. 
* Following the belief that leading in a "fast world" always requires "fast decisions" and "fast action" is a good way to get killed. 
* The great companies changed less in reaction to a radically changing world than the comparison companies. 
 
The authors challenge conventional wisdom with thought-provoking, sticky, and supremely practical concepts. They include 10Xers; the 20 Mile March; Fire Bullets then Cannonballs; Leading above the Death Line; Zoom Out, Then Zoom In; and the SMaC Recipe. Finally, in the last chapter, Collins and Hansen present their most provocative and original analysis: defining, quantifying, and studying the role of luck. The great companies and the leaders who built them were not luckier than the comparisons, but they did get a higher Return on Luck. This book is classic Collins: contrarian, data driven, and uplifting. He and Hansen show convincingly that, even in a chaotic and uncertain world, greatness happens by choice, not by chance

Jim Collins is author or coauthor of six books that have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, including the bestsellers Good to Great, Built to Last, and How the Mighty Fall. Jim began his research and teaching career on the faculty at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. He now operates a management laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where he conducts research, teaches, and consults with executives from the corporate and social sectors. 
 
Morten T. Hansen is a management professor at the University of California, Berkeley (School of Information), and at INSEAD. Formerly a professor at Harvard Business School, Morten holds a PhD from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Fulbright scholar. He is the author of Collaboration and the winner of the Administrative Science Quarterly Award for exceptional contributions to the field of organization studies. Previously a manager with the Boston Consulting Group, Morten consults and gives talks for companies worldwide.

THE NEW QUESTION 
Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns with another groundbreaking work, this time to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research, buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins and his colleague, Morten Hansen, enumerate the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times. 
 
THE NEW STUDY 
Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Collins's prior work by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today. With a team of more than twenty researchers, Collins and Hansen studied companies that rose to greatness - beating their industry indexes by a minimum of ten times over fifteen years - in environments characterized by big forces and rapid shifts that leaders could not predict or control. The research team then contrasted these "10X companies" to a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to achieve greatness in similarly extreme environments. 
 
THE NEW FINDINGS 
The study results were full of provocative surprises. Such as: 
* The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid. 
* Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card in a chaotic and uncertain world; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline. 
* Following the belief that leading in a "fast world" always requires "fast decisions" and "fast action" is a good way to get killed. 
* The great companies changed less in reaction to a radically changing world than the comparison companies. 
 
The authors challenge conventional wisdom with thought-provoking, sticky, and supremely practical concepts. They include 10Xers; the 20 Mile March; Fire Bullets then Cannonballs; Leading above the Death Line; Zoom Out, Then Zoom In; and the SMaC Recipe. Finally, in the last chapter, Collins and Hansen present their most provocative and original analysis: defining, quantifying, and studying the role of luck. The great companies and the leaders who built them were not luckier than the comparisons, but they did get a higher Return on Luck. This book is classic Collins: contrarian, data driven, and uplifting. He and Hansen show convincingly that, even in a chaotic and uncertain world, greatness happens by choice, not by chance.

And Why Some Companies Never Give In

How the Mighty Fall

A look at the reasons why a company fails, and how to avoid the fall.

Decline can be avoided. 
 
Decline can be detected. 
 
Decline can be reversed. 
 
Amidst the desolate landscape of fallen great companies, Jim Collins began to wonder: How do the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course? 
 
In How the Mighty Fall, Collins confronts these questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course. Collins' research project-more than four years in duration-uncovered five step-wise stages of decline: 
 
Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success 
 
Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More 
 
Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril 
 
Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation 
 
Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death 
 
By understanding these stages of decline, leaders can substantially reduce their chances of falling all the way to the bottom. 
 
Great companies can stumble, badly, and recover. 
 
Every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline. There is no law of nature that the most powerful will inevitably remain at the top. Anyone can fall and most eventually do. But, as Collins' research emphasizes, some companies do indeed recover-in some cases, coming back even stronger-even after having crashed into the depths of Stage 4. 
 
Decline, it turns out, is largely self-inflicted, and the path to recovery lies largely within our own hands. We are not imprisoned by our circumstances, our history, or even our staggering defeats along the way. As long as we never get entirely knocked out of the game, hope always remains. The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again.

Jim Collins is author or co-author of six books that have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, including the bestsellers Good to Great, Built to Last, and How the Mighty Fall. Jim began his research and teaching career on the faculty at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. He now operates a management laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where he conducts research, teaches, and consults with executives from the corporate and social sectors. 
 
More about Jim and his works can be found at his e-teaching site, where he has assembled articles, audio clips, a recommended reading list, discussion guide, tools, and other information. The site is designed to be a place for students to study and learn: www.jimcollins.com

Decline can be avoided. 
Decline can be detected. 
Decline can be reversed. 
 
Amidst the desolate landscape of fallen great companies, Jim Collins began to wonder: How do the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course? 
 
In How the Mighty Fall, Collins confronts these questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course. Collins' research project-more than four years in duration-uncovered five step-wise stages of decline: 
 
Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success 
Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More 
Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril 
Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation 
Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death 
 
By understanding these stages of decline, leaders can substantially reduce their chances of falling all the way to the bottom. 
 
Great companies can stumble, badly, and recover. 
 
Every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline. There is no law of nature that the most powerful will inevitably remain at the top. Anyone can fall and most eventually do. But, as Collins' research emphasizes, some companies do indeed recover-in some cases, coming back even stronger-even after having crashed into the depths of Stage 4. 
 
Decline, it turns out, is largely self-inflicted, and the path to recovery lies largely within our own hands. We are not imprisoned by our circumstances, our history, or even our staggering defeats along the way. As long as we never get entirely knocked out of the game, hope always remains. The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again.

Good to Great and the Social Sectors

The author of the best-selling Good to Great turns his attention to the problems of the social and public sectors - and suggests how to improve them.

'We must reject the idea - well-intentioned, but dead wrong - that the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become "more like a business".' 
 
So begins this astonishingly blunt and timely manifesto by leading business thinker Jim Collins. Rejecting the belief, common among politicians, that all would be well in society if only the public sector operated more like the private sector, he sets out a radically new approach to creating successful hospitals, police forces, universities, charities, and other non-profit-making organisations. In the process he rejects many deep-rooted assumptions: that somehow it's possible to measure social bodies in purely financial terms; that they can be managed like traditional businesses; that they can be transformed simply by throwing money at them. Instead he argues for radical new attitudes and strategies, using the analytical approach and clear thinking that lie at the heart of Good to Great.

Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

Built To Last

The key to building an organisation for lasting success.

The concept behind this book is simple and brilliant: find out what makes companies that outperform their peers for decades enjoy that success - and then apply those lessons yourself. Written by multimillion-copy bestselling author, speaker and business management consultant Jim Collins and organizational theorist Jerry Porras, it's the only blueprint you need for sustained business growth. 
 
'Built to Last is an unusual business book - seriously researched, unconventional in its conclusions... [It] is well worth reading, particularly by those engaged in trying to reinvigorate our nation's largest enterprises.' -- Wall Street Journal 
 
'Outstanding from Jim Collins as always. A definite must-read' -- ***** Reader review 
'Blew my mind on how to run a business, every leader or business owner should read this book' -- ***** Reader review 
'Very enlightening!' -- ***** Reader review 
'This book among top 5 business book I ever read!' -- ***** Reader review 
 
********************************************************************************************* 
'This is not a book about charismatic visionary leaders. It is not about visionary product concepts or visionary products or visionary market insights. Nor is it about just having a corporate vision. This is a book about something far more important, enduring, and substantial. This is a book about visionary companies.' 
 
Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, multimillion copy bestselling author, speaker and consultant focused on business management and company sustainability and growth Jim Collins and organizational theorist Jerry Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied each company in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day - as start-ups, as midsize companies and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: 'What makes the truly exceptional companies different from other companies?' 
 
Built to Last is the result of that research: filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, Built to Last provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the twenty-first century and beyond.

A huge inspiration for our business growth strategy over the years.

'One of the most eye-opening business studies since In Search of Excellence.'

'Built to Last is an unusual business book - seriously researched, unconventional in its conclusions...[It] is well worth reading, particularly by those engaged in trying to reinvigorate our nation's largest enterprises.'

'In Built to Last, Collins and Porras present a brilliant and lucid analysis and, yes, a blueprint for organizational excellence. It should be required reading.'

The concept behind this book is simple and brilliant: find out what makes companies that outperform their peers for decades enjoy that success - and then apply those lessons yourself. Written by multimillion-copy bestselling author, speaker and business management consultant Jim Collins and organizational theorist Jerry Porras, it's the only blueprint you need for sustained business growth. 
 
'Built to Last is an unusual business book - seriously researched, unconventional in its conclusions... [It] is well worth reading, particularly by those engaged in trying to reinvigorate our nation's largest enterprises.' -- Wall Street Journal 
 
'Outstanding from Jim Collins as always. A definite must-read' -- ***** Reader review 
'Blew my mind on how to run a business, every leader or business owner should read this book' -- ***** Reader review 
'Very enlightening!' -- ***** Reader review 
'This book among top 5 business book I ever read!' -- ***** Reader review 
 
********************************************************************************************* 
'This is not a book about charismatic visionary leaders. It is not about visionary product concepts or visionary products or visionary market insights. Nor is it about just having a corporate vision. This is a book about something far more important, enduring, and substantial. This is a book about visionary companies.' 
 
 Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, multimillion copy bestselling author, speaker and consultant focused on business management and company sustainability and growth Jim Collins and organizational theorist Jerry Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied each company in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day - as start-ups, as midsize companies and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: 'What makes the truly exceptional companies different from other companies?' 
 
 Built to Last is the result of that research: filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, Built to Last provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the twenty-first century and beyond.

Good To Great

Jim Collins, bestselling author of Built to Last returns with Good to Great, a look at what it takes to succeed in business and how a good company can become a great one.

...the biggest selling and most influential management book of the new millennium.

Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not-so-great, Collins lays a well-reasoned roadmap to excellence that any organisation would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come.

in this category (management books) there is nothing to touch Jim Collins... It is essential reading.

In 1996, Jim Collins and his research team set out to answer one simple question: 'Can a good company become a great company and, if so, how?' Most great companies grew up with superb parents - founders like George Merck, David Packard, and Walt Disney - who instilled the seeds of greatness early on. But what about the vast majority of companies that wake up part way through life and realize that they're good, but not great? 
 
With 21 research associates working in groups of four to six at a time over a period of nearly five years, the study involved a wide range of both qualitative and quantitative analyses and examined 1,435 Fortune 500 companies. On the qualitative front, they collected thousands of articles, conducted interviews with key executives, analyzed internal strategy documents, and culled analyst reports. Quantitatively, they ran financial metrics, examined executive compensation, compared patterns of management turnover, quantified company layoffs and restructurings, and calculated the effect of acquisitions and divestitures on performance. They then synthesized the results to identify the drivers of good-to-great transformations. 
 
And what did Collins and his team discover? They found the key concepts that permitted these good-to-great companies to achieve cumulative stock returns 6.9 times the stock market in fifteen years. To put that in perspective, that's a rate better than twice the rate achieved by General Electric. Put another way, a dollar invested in a mutual fund of the good-to-great companies in 1965 grew to $470 by 2000 - compared to just $56 in the general stock market. These are extraordinary numbers, made all the more so by the fact they came from previously unremarkable companies.

________________________________ 
Can a good company become a great one? If so, how? 
 
After a five-year research project, Jim Collins concludes that good to great can and does happen. In this book, he uncovers the underlying variables that enable any type of organisation to make the leap from good to great while other organisations remain only good. Rigorously supported by evidence, his findings are surprising - at times even shocking - to the modern mind. 
 
Good to Great achieves a rare distinction: a management book full of vital ideas that reads as well as a fast-paced novel. It is widely regarded as one of the most important business books ever written.

Cliffs, Fog, Fire and the Self-Knowledge Imperative

What to Make of a Life

Jim Collins has published multiple international bestsellers that have sold in total more than 11 million copies worldwide, including the perennial favorite “Good to Great”. His writings and teachings are based on extensive research projects designed to uncover timeless principles of human endeavor and have had a lasting impact across all sectors of society. All of Jim’s books share a common thread: the study of people and how they navigate the big questions of leadership and life.

What to make of a life? 
 
It is a question we all wrestle with more than once: How do we find our way in the world? How do we make it past the cliffs, significant events that can radically change a life? How do we keep the inner fire burning bright, long and late? Inspired by relentless curiosity, Jim Collins devoted a decade to studying these questions and to minutely analysing those moments when life flips from clarity to confusion and casts us into a befuddling fog. 
 
His exploration follows various lives side-by-side, paired together at cliffs, and analyses the different choices made and divergent paths taken. Two rock musicians confronting a future without the group that had brought them success. Two public figures tainted by scandal having to make decisions about how to rebuild their lives. Two suffragists achieving their epic goal and so left with the puzzle of what to do next. Two figure skaters seeking new purpose when their Olympic careers come to an end. What emerges from Collins’s extensive studies – of writers, actors, scientists, leaders and many others – is a framework for understanding how individual lives can be built, sustained and constantly renewed. 
 
By examining the long arc of these remarkable lives, Collins tackles life’s questions. What does it take to:<ul><li>Discover a deeply fulfilling role in life – one that you are naturally ‘encoded’ for—and then to find a second one, if the first one ends?</li><li>Overcome a major cliff—a fracture point that forces choices about what’s next and calls for you to re-envision the years to come?</li><li>Make your personal economics work so that you can focus on one big thing that feeds your inner fire?</li><li>Navigate the fog, when you feel uncertain or even outright lost, and build confidence step by step?</li><li>Build personal momentum decade upon decade, so that your most creative and energetic years are spread across an entire lifetime?</li><li>Achieve the imperative to “Know Thyself” and apply self-knowledge to each phase of life?</li></ul> 
And for the first time, Collins movingly chronicles his own story to reveal how undertaking this project transformed him, changing his thinking and reshaping his emotions in fundamental ways. Surprising, story-driven, deeply researched, and uplifting, What to Make of a Life is a book like no other, convincingly showing how a richly fulfilled life is within reach of us all.

Jim Collins

______________________________ 
THE BOOK THAT REED HASTINGS AT NETFLIX TOLD EVERY ASPIRING CEO TO READ 
 
Nearly thirty years ago, Stanford University faculty members Jim Collins and Bill Lazier showed you how to turn an entrepreneurial business into an enduring great company. 
 
Beyond Entrepreneurship became a leadership staple, particularly among small and early-stage companies. And while Collins would go on to write a series of famous bestsellers that have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, this lesser-known early work remains the favourite of many of his loyal readers. 
 
Now, with Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, Collins re-shares the timeless insights in Beyond Entrepreneurship alongside new perspectives gleaned after decades of additional research into what makes great companies tick. In Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, you'll learn how to turn your company into the 2.0 version of itself. You'll be challenged to grow your own leadership as your company grows, from 1x to 2x to 5x to 10x. You'll learn Collins's newest reflections on people decisions, insights that extend beyond his seminal "first who" principle about getting the right people on the bus. You'll learn why luck favours the persistent, and what it means to look for "who luck." You'll learn about the origins of the "BHAG" (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), and why even a small business needs a galvanising BHAG to have a complete and inspiring vision. 
 
You'll also unlock what Collins calls "The Map." The Map is a road map that pulls together the key concepts developed from thirty years of research and writing into one integrated framework for building a company that delivers superior results, makes a distinctive impact, and achieves lasting endurance. 
 
Finally, you'll learn the lessons that Jim Collins himself learned from the most influential mentor in his life, Bill Lazier. 
 
Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 is the ambitious upgrade to a classic. In Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, you'll discover that the goal to turn your business into an enduring great company is as relevant - and as within your reach - as ever.

Jim Collins

Books by Jim Collins

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter