Book review for ICFAI Business School program

1. Good to great
Presented by thirumeninathan
Disciplined people Level 5 Leadership
First Who, Then What
Disciplined thought Confront the Brutal Facts
The Hedgehog Concept
Disciplined Action A Culture of Discipline
Technology Accelerators
The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

2. …so what is
great?
Level 5

3.  Leaders who employ a
paradoxical mix of personal
humility and professional will
 Set up successors for even
greater success
 Compelling modesty, self-
effacing, understated
 Fanatically driven to 5–Level 5 Executive
produce sustainable results 4–Effective Leader
 More plow horse than show3–Competent Manager
horse
2–Contributing Team Member
1–Highly Capable Individual

4.  Attribute success to other than
themselves
 Take full responsibility for poor decisions
 Many people have the potential to evolve
into Level 5
 Extra-ordinary results
with no attribution or
Claimant – a hidden Level 5
5–Level 5 Executive
leader at work 4–Effective Leader
3–Competent Manager
2–Contributing Team Member
1–Highly Capable Individual

5. First Who, Then

6.  Leaders began the transformation by first
getting the right people on the bus (and the
wrong people off the bus).
“Who” questions came before “what” decisions -
before vision, strategy, organization structure,
and tactics.

7.  Leaders were rigorous, not ruthless in people
decisions.
 Three practical disciplines for being rigorous:
When in doubt, don’t hire
When you know you need to make a people
decision, act
 Put your best people on your best opportunities,
not biggest problems

8.  Management teams debate vigorously to find
best answers, yet unify behind decisions.
“Right” person has more to do with character
traits and innate capabilities than with knowledge,
background, or skills.

9. “Breakthrough results
come about by a series
of good decisions,
diligently executed
and accumulated one
on top of another”
Confront the Brutal Facts

10.  Setting off on the
path to greatness
requires confronting
the brutal facts of
current reality.
 Must create a
culture wherein
people have a
tremendous
opportunity to be
heard and,
ultimately, for the
truth to be heard.

11.  Four basic
practices:
 Lead with
questions, not
answers
 Engage in dialogue
and debate, not
coercion
 Conduct autopsies,
without blame
 Build red flag
mechanisms where
information cannot
be ignored

12.  Stockdale Paradox:
Retain absolute faith
that you can and will
prevail in the end
AND
 at the same time
confront the most
brutal facts of your
current reality,
whatever they might
be.

13. Fox or the hedgehog

14.  Hedgehogs
simplify a complex
world into a single
organizing idea, a
basic principle or
concept that
unifies and guides
everything.
 Hedgehogs see
what is essential,
and ignore the
rest.

15. Simplicity
What you are deeply within
passionate about the three
circles
What you can What drives
be the best in your
the world at economic
engine

16.  Getting the Hedgehog Concept takes an average
of four years.
 It is an iterative process by The
Council:
 The right people
 Engaged in vigorous
dialogue and debate
 Infused with the brutal
facts
 Guided by questions
formed by the three
circles

17. All Guided by An Iterative
Ask Questions
the Three Circles Process
Autopsies The Dialogue &
& Analysis Council Debate
Executive
Decisions

18.  Getting disciplined people who
engage in disciplined thought
and who then take disciplined
action, fanatically consistent
with three circles
 People who “rinse their
cottage cheese”
 Not about a tyrant who
disciplines
Culture of Discipline

19.  Involves a duality –
Freedom and discipline.
 Requires people who
adhere to a
consistent system.
 Gives people freedom
and responsibility
within framework of
that system.

20.  Includes willingness to shun
opportunities that fall outside
the three circles.
 Budgeting is to decide which
arenas fit Hedgehog Concept
and should be fully funded
and which should not be
funded at all.
 “Stop doing” lists are more
important than “to do” lists.
 “Anything that does not fit
with our Hedgehog Concept,
we will not do.”

21. Technology can be an accelerator of momentum, but not a
creator of it
“Good to Great companies are pioneers in the application of
carefully selected technologies”
Technology

22.  Good-to-greats avoid
technology fads and
bandwagons.
 Yet they often become
pioneers in the application of
carefully selected
technologies.
 They keep asking - Does it
fit directly with your
Hedgehog Concept?
 Good-to-greats used
technology as an accelerator
of momentum, not a creator
of it.

23.  Technology by itself is never a root cause of
either greatness or decline.
 “Crawl, walk, run” can be a very effective
approach, even during times of rapid and radical
technological change.

24. Flywheel or doom loop

25.  Good-to-great transformations never happened in one
fell swoop.
 There was no single defining action, no grand program, no
one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle
moment.
 Instead they followed a predictable pattern of buildup
and breakthrough.
 Like pushing on a giant, heavy flywheel, it takes a lot of
effort to get the thing moving at all, but . . .

26.  With persistent pushing . . .
 In a consistent direction . . .
 Over a long period of time . . .
 The flywheel builds momentum . .
 Eventually hitting a point of
breakthrough.
 In good-to-great companies
problems of commitment,
alignment, motivation, and change
largely take care of themselves.
 Alignment follows from results and
momentum, not the other way
around.

27. The doom loop
Disappointing results
Reaction without understanding
The tyranny of the new
No build up ... no momentum ... no breakthrough

28. Thank you!