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Much More Than Just Another Business Book

Jim Collins wrote easily one of the most stimulating books I have ever read about organizational leadership and effectiveness. What made this book really stand out from other business-oriented books was how applicable the approach, advice, and conclusions were to all organizations -- large or small, public or private, profit or non-profit -- and to individuals' personal lives. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about what it takes to transform yourself and your organization from mediocrity to greatness.

This book is a detailed and well-documented study about the differences between good and great. Collins and his team of researchers and analysts used a common-sense research methodology and readily available data on public companies for their study. From those dry, humble beginnings, Collins transformed his team's efforts into rich and dynamic principles about life and organizations that can propel both from being just good to being truly great.

According to Collins, "I like to think of our work as a search for timeless principles - the enduring physics of great organizations - that will remain true and relevant no matter how the world changes around us...That good is the enemy of great is not just a business problem. It is a `human' problem. If we have cracked the code on the question of good to great, we should have something of value to any type of organization."

The book's chapters were sequential and based upon what Collins and his team learned about the journey to greatness. Each chapter contained facts, stories, statistics, and credible analysis, and ended with a summary of two distinct parts: key points and unexpected findings. While the key points were critical to reinforcing the chapters' material, I thought the unexpected findings were invaluable in exposing the common myths and misperceptions about greatness that Collins' research disproved.

I can honestly say that the book's content and Collins' easy-to-understand writing style kept me interested and fully engaged from cover to cover - the lines and margins of my book have my highlights, underlines, and extensive notes to prove it! In the last six pages before the epilogue, Collins explained the broader, universal context of his work and showed how and why it can be applied to individuals and all organizations. Those very focused and powerful pages helped solidify in my mind why I consider this book one of the best and most important books I have ever read.