How do You Transition Your Company from Good to Great?

In his book Good to Great: Why Some Com­pa­nies Make the Leap… and Oth­ers Don’t, Jim Collins tells us what the dif­fer­ence is between a com­pany that has a good suc­cess rate com­pared to a com­pany that goes off the chart with a great suc­cess rate span­ning decades with mar­ket shares reach­ing mul­ti­ple times the nor­mal value. A key fac­tor that he dis­cusses in his book is the Hedge­hog Con­cept. Use this 3 part con­cept for your busi­ness by ask­ing “what can you be the best in the world at, what makes eco­nomic sense, and what are you pas­sion­ate about?” Now, while think­ing about these ques­tions, start by get­ting the right play­ers on your team and devel­op­ing Level 5 lead­ers. Have the right peo­ple that are self-disciplined and pas­sion­ate. We often hire peo­ple because of cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, expe­ri­ence, and their track record, but these can be learned, while pas­sion and self-discipline are inher­ent traits. When it comes to lead­er­ship, com­mu­ni­cate your ideas, share your vision, and open your mind to hear what oth­ers have to say. Through this com­mu­ni­ca­tion, take cal­cu­lated steps to develop your busi­ness, think­ing about the Hedge­hog Concept.

This might seem easy, but when think­ing about how great com­pa­nies begin, there is no sin­gle “ah ha” moment. The com­pa­nies work toward their goals over time. In this book, one strong char­ac­ter­is­tic of the great com­pa­nies relates to the way they embrace change. What sense is there hid­ing your head in the sand, boohoo­ing in the board­room, or ran­domly flip flop­ping on ideas with each change. When devel­op­ing your busi­ness, accept change as that one thing that is con­stant and then take the time to think through how you can posi­tion your busi­ness to work effec­tively and effi­ciently in an ever chang­ing envi­ron­ment. Change can be new reg­u­la­tions, inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­ogy, eco­nomic con­di­tions, or just about any­thing. Instead of wor­ry­ing about the change that is bound to occur, think through how you can con­tinue to change with the chang­ing envi­ron­ment in a way that answers to your Hedge­hog Con­cept. Expect this to take time. Time to plan and eval­u­ate. Time to think and plan some more. And then more eval­u­at­ing. This does not have to be imme­di­ate, and in all cases that are referred to with the great com­pa­nies, they don’t act immediately.

How much time do you spend in your busi­ness plan­ning, review­ing and eval­u­at­ing? What can you do dif­fer­ently in com­mu­ni­ca­tion, how can you get the right peo­ple in the right places, and what is the com­pany cul­ture that you are developing?

I highly rec­om­mend the book Good to Great: Why Some Com­pa­nies Make the Leap… and Oth­ers Don’t as one of the best books for the busi­ness pro­fes­sional. While you are going through each chap­ter, open up your mind to com­pare how your com­pany is doing things and think about how you can make many small, incre­men­tal changes to improve your success.

It is com­mon for busi­nesses to reg­u­larly eval­u­ate their busi­ness plan. At 4QR Busi­ness Solu­tions, we pro­vide work­shops that help you in cre­at­ing or updat­ing a busi­ness plan. We can sit down in a more per­son­al­ized set­ting with you and your team to eval­u­ate your sit­u­a­tion or pro­vide train­ing. Con­tact us today for more information.