Good to Great

And this is another reason why i like jury duty so much. I had plenty of free time with all the court proceedings so i was able to finish my book!

I recommend this book to everyone, even those of you who are completely uninterested in the business world. The research team in the book discovered eleven "great" companies that outperformed all the other "good" companies, and then proceeds to find out if there is an underlying theme or reason why only these eleven companies are able to transform from good to great.

If the curiosity of learning what the researchers figured out all these great companies have in common isn't enough to motivate you to read this book, then maybe a little materialistic motivation is what you need. From 1965 to 2000, if you were to invest $1 in a mutual fund of the good-to-great companies, $1 in a mutual fund of good companies, and $1 in a general market stock fund; your investment in the good-to-great companies would have multiplied 471 times , 93 times in good companies, and only 56 times in the general market.

So what do these eleven companies have in common? In one word---discipline. These companies have disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. Sounds too easy, doesn't it? I discovered myself thinking quite often how easy it would be for everyone not only to learn the concepts within this book but also to practice them because everything seemed so intuitive. And hopefully you'll agree.

One of my favorite concepts is called the Stockdale Paradox, which falls within the "Confront the Brutal Facts" section of disciplined thought. Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale (yes, James Bond) was the highest ranking US military officer in the "Hanoi Hilton" prisoner-of-war camp during the Vietnam war. He not only had the burden of command within a prison but also was tortured over twenty times during his eight-year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973. Admiral Stockdale attributes his survival to never losing faith. "I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience in the defining event of my life, which, in restrospect, I would not trade."

The paradox comes from those who didn't survive. Admiral Stockdale said the optimists were the ones who didn't last - the optimists who would think they'd get out by Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving or Christmas again and would eventually die of a broken heart. Admiral Stockdale explains the paradox: "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

In my opinion, having the Stockdale Paradox reaffirm my personal beliefs alone would have been enough, but i'm happy to say Good to Great delivers so much more.