“From Good to Great!”
Perhaps, “from good to great” book is considered one of the most influential master pieces in the 21st century, it describes leadership levels and leaders eminences in a very realistic, yet fashionable manners that decides companies progress or failure main causes and profound psychology.
I would like to share with you - my colleagues - some highlights and main points as I felt it is very important and fundamental due to the current market circumstances.
Chapter # 1: Jim describes 5 levels of leaders who contribute in the success or failure of any institution, the first base leader who I like to call only “Manager” is the one who steals the credit of his team and definitely blame everyone but himself for any failure, he even does not consider any “failure” as an experience. Those – short term - managers have been placed wrongfully into the “wrong seat on the wrong bus!” quote by collins.
While number 5 leaders are those who share, delegate, motivate, gives credit to the lawful owners and takes all the blame if anything goes wrong. Those people possess the 3rd level of understanding which is a very advanced level of interpreting actions and having a set of 12 reactions all fit into the best favor of his team.
Chapter #2: Jim gives valuable advices, which in my opinion are considered a corner stone to success, let’s review them together;
1. Always be passionate and interested : Jim says; “being interested is more important than being interesting” if you are doing anything except your true passion, do not you ever expect to be great, maybe at best levels you will become good!. Outstanding performers are those who chase their dreams, their passion, the thing that they can even do it on daily basis for free.
1. First who then what and where: Jim is cynical here when he says “make sure that you put the right people in the bus” off course the word bus here is a metaphor which represents a COMPANY, before you decide where you want to reach, your objectives, your budget, your expected revenue. Having the right people on the bus is the first and foremost challenge any CEO faces which will enable him to achieve even the unexpected, who is a head of everything then decide the journey.
1. Values and preserve: having un-negotiable core values is the key to sustain a long-life success which can be for generations, those who change their values according to market trend will never survive, nor those who represent them, on the other hand, being preserve and stubborn towards achieving your targets is the only strong way, “can you stay focused and suffer for longer than anyone ells is the door to greatness”.
2. Be disciplined: discipline is the only way which will make you survive when things go bad, sticking to excellence in all work aspect and not compromising your “love to details” can and will always save your life.
1. Take time to THINK away from technology: sometimes a simple moment of silence, away from all modern technology can show you 12 ways to solve any problem you thought it will never be solved, Newton had a moment of silence and meditation when he discovered gravity.
1. Do not motivate your people, instead hire “self-motivated” people: managers, leaders, spent 40% of their time trying to motivate their staff, Jim says this is a waste of time, if you do not have enough self-reasons to excel, nothing will make you do – again put the right people on the bus!.