Reading Order
Good to Great Reading Order
Jim Collins's Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't (2001) presents the research findings of a five-year study comparing companies that made sustained transitions from good to great performance to those that did not — identifying a set of recurring patterns involving 'Level 5 Leadership,' the 'Hedgehog Concept,' the 'Flywheel,' 'First Who, Then What,' and 'Confronting the Brutal Facts.'
Where to start
Good to Great
Complete Good to Great Book List
- 1Buy
Good to Great
Jim Collins·2001·The definitive statement of the good-to-great framework. Start here. - 2Buy
Built to Last
Jim Collins·1994·Collins's earlier work on 'visionary companies' — the companies that sustained greatness for decades — which Good to Great is designed to precede conceptually. Read second. - 3Buy
Great by Choice
Jim Collins·2011·Collins's research on companies that thrived in chaos and uncertainty — extending the good-to-great framework to high-uncertainty environments. Read third. - Buy
Turning the Flywheel
OptionalJim Collins·2019·A short companion monograph on how to apply the Flywheel concept specifically. Read alongside Good to Great.
Good to Great — Frequently Asked Questions
What is 'Level 5 Leadership' in Good to Great?
Level 5 Leadership is Collins's term for the paradoxical combination of personal humility and professional will that characterizes the CEOs who led good-to-great transitions in his study. Level 5 Leaders are fiercely ambitious for the institution rather than themselves — they credit success to other people and external factors, and blame failure on themselves — while simultaneously demonstrating an iron, almost stoic resolve in pursuit of the company's goals. Collins found that the companies that made sustained good-to-great transitions were led by Level 5 Leaders in every case, while the comparison companies were often led by high-profile, charismatic executives who placed their personal ambitions above the institution's needs.
What is the 'Hedgehog Concept'?
The Hedgehog Concept, derived from Isaiah Berlin's essay on the fox and the hedgehog, is the intersection of three circles: (1) what you are deeply passionate about, (2) what you can be the best in the world at, and (3) what drives your economic engine. Collins found that good-to-great companies achieved a simple, crystalline understanding of this intersection — often taking years to develop — and then made decisions consistent with it, while their comparison companies lacked this clarity or chased profitability in areas outside their potential for greatness. The fox pursues many things; the hedgehog knows one big thing, and good-to-great companies think like hedgehogs.
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