BusinessWeek Pairs BIG Ideas to BIG Results with Good to Great
By: Michael Kanazawa
In the March 17th edition of BusinessWeek, on page 20, there is a picture of our book with Good to Great. And in that article you can see Jim Collins’ name appear with just two other authors being mentioned, Michael Kanazawa and Robert Miles. Not bad company for a book that has sold 3.6 million copies. It was truly exciting to be in such good company.
The article is based on the idea that top selling business books have something specific in common. They have red covers. But beyond the covers, the two books also drive for the same type of greatness in organizations. Jim Collins’ Good to Great identified the key ideas and principles through historical research. BIG Ideas to BIG Results shows exactly how to put a process in place and how to lead a great company.
Jim Collins’ book was a hit for a few reasons beyond the red cover. The most compelling and somewhat counter-intuitive finding was that the CEOs of the most successful companies he studied were relatively unknown. They were self-effacing, humble people who were more focused on the success of their organization and others than themselves. That was a strong confirmation for many leaders who thought they might need to change and be more like the superhero CEOs that they’ve seen on the cover of magazines and television to drive success. More people realized that they could and should be top leaders. And for those ambitious and hard-charging leaders who were more focused on themselves than others, they heard a wake up call to balance out their attention between themselves and others. It was a fantastic message and lesson.
In addition, through Collins’ research, there were other ideas that surfaced about creating a focused and compelling strategy that he called a Hedgehog Concept. He also pointed out that you need to get a fly-wheel going where small wins build up into bigger gains and then true momentum is built in a company. These were more and highly valuable insights into the things that can take a company from good to great.
If there was anything missing in the book, it wasn’t a key concept or idea. What was missing was a way to put all of those great ideas into motion to drive results. It is one thing to know what to do by looking at history and a whole other thing to know how to do it and when to apply each idea. We didn’t set out to write an extension of Collins’ book, but it can serve that way. After years of working together we were encouraged by clients to make our process and approach available to more people at all levels of organizations, so that is what we did.
BIG Ideas to BIG Results is a book that shows leaders at all levels exactly how to put a proven process in place and to establish leaders at all levels to operate an organization that happens to mirror the principles in Good to Great. The reason for the similarities in outcomes is that our conclusions, like Collins’ research, are based on distilling lessons from great successes.
In our case, our work is constantly being shaped by working closely with successful leaders and their organizations, rather than just research. The work originated over 25 years ago as Bob Miles was chairing the innovative Management and Organizational Effectiveness program at Harvard Business School. Through that program, Bob distilled the early version of the ACT (Accelerated Corporate Transformation) process. Since the mid 1990s, Bob and I have continued to refine the process through working with many different types and sizes of companies and divisions. BIG Ideas to BIG Results is intended to bring to leaders at all levels the core of the ACT process and more importantly how to put it in place and lead in a way that makes it work.
So yes, the book cover is red, and as explained by our publisher’s marketing vice president in the BusinessWeek article, it is because book jackets now need to serve as little 3 second ads and the red and simple text makes for a fast and powerful impression. But like the book Good to Great, our book’s success is based on much more than just the red color of the cover. And readers will find great value in a book that is fully consistent with the principles in Good to Great, but focused more on how to apply those principles consistently, quickly and through leaders at all levels.
