Lead Worship

Good to Great – Chapter 3: Key Points

Posted on August 22nd, 2008 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Book Notes, Good to Great, Leadership.

• The good-to-great leaders began the transformation by first getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.
• The key point of this chapter is not just the idea of getting the right people on the team. The key point is that “who” questions come before “what” decisions – before vision, before strategy, before organization structure, before tactics. First who, then what – as a rigorous discipline, consistently applied.
• The comparison companies frequently followed the “genius with a thousand helpers” model – a genius leader who sets a vision and then enlists a crew of highly capable “helpers” to make the vision happen. This model fails when the genius departs.
• The good-to-great leaders were rigorous, not ruthless, in people decisions. They did not rely on layoffs and restructuring as a primary strategy for improving performance. The comparison companies used layoffs to a much greater extent.
• We uncoverd three practical disciplines for being regorous in people decisions:

1. When in doubt, don’t hire -keep looking.
2. When you know you need to make a people change, act.
3. Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

• Good-to-great management teams consist of people who debate vigorously in search of the best answers, yet who unify behind decisions, regardless of parochial interests.
• We found no systematic pattern linking executive compensation to the shift from good to great. The purpose of compensation is not to “motivate” the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get and keep the right people in the first place.
• The old adage “People are your most important asset” is wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are.
• Whether someone is the “right person” has more to do wtih character traits and innate capabilities than with specific knowledge, background, or skills.

(pages 63-64)

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Good to Great – Chapter 3: First Who…Then What

Posted on August 22nd, 2008 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Book Notes, Good to Great, Leadership.

“The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it. They said, in essence, ‘Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong peple off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great’.” (page 41)

“The good-to-great leaders understood three simple truths. First, if you begin with ‘who,’ rather than ‘what,’ you can more easily adapt to a changing world. If people join the bus primarily because of where it is going, what happens if you get ten miles down the road and you need to change direction?…Second, if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away. The right people don’t need to be tightly managed or fired up; they will be self-motivated by the inner drive to produce the best results and to be part of creating something great. Third if you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter whether your discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company. Great vision without great people is irrelevant” (page 42).

“The main point is to first get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it. The second key point is the degree of sheer rigor needed in people decisions in order to take a company from good to great” (page 44).

“The purpose of a compensation system should not be to get the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get the right people on the bus in the first pace, and to keep them there” (page 50).

“To attract and keep the best workers, Nucor paid its steelworkers more than any other steel company in the world. But it built its pay system around a high-pressure team-bonus mechanism, with over 50 percent of a workers compensation tied directly to the productivity of his work team of twenty to forty people…Nucor system did not aim to turn lazy people into hard workers but to create an environment where hardworking people would thrive and lazy workers would either jump or get thrown right off the bus (page 50-51).

“Nucor rejected the old adage that people are your most important asset. In a good-to-great transformation, people are not your most important asset. The right people are” (page 51).

“In determining ‘the right people,’ the good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience. Not that specific knowledge or skills are unimportant, but they viewed these traits as more teachable (or at least learnable), whereas they believed dimensions like character, work ethic, basic intelligence, dedication to fulfilling commitments, and values are more ingrained” (page 51).

“The good-to-great companies probably sound like tough places to work and they are. If you don’t have what it takes, you probably won’t last long. But they’re not ruthless cultures, they’re rigorous cultures. And the distinction is crucial.
“To be ruthless means hacking and cutting, especially in difficult times, or wantonly firing  people without any thoughtful consideration. To be rigorous means consistently applying exacting standards at all times and at all levels, especially in upper management. To be rigorous, not ruthless, means that the best people need not worry about their posistions and can concentrate fully on their work”(page 52).

How to be Rigorous

1. Practical Discipline #1: When in doubt, don’t hire – keep looking
   “Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people.”
2. Practical Discipline #2:When you know you need to make a people change, act.
   “The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake. The best people don’t need to be managed. Guided, taught, led-yes. But not tightly managed. We’ve all experienced or observed the following scenario. We have a wrong person on the bus and we know it. Yet we wait, we delay, we try alternatives, we give a third and fourth chance, we hope that the situation will improve, we invest time in tryaing to properly manage the person, we build little systems to compensate for his shortcomings, and so forth.”
   “Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people.”
   “Indeed, if we’re honest with ourselves, the reason we wait too long often has less to do with concern for that person and more to do with our own convenience.”
3. Practical Discipline #3: Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.
   “When you decide to sell off your problems, don’t sell off your best people…If you create a place where the best people always have a seat on the bus, they’re more likely to support changes in direction” (pages 54-59).

“Even during the darkest and most intense times of the takeover crises of the 1980s and despite the increasingly global nature of Gillette’s business, Mockler maintained remarkable balance in his life. He did not significantly reduce the amount of time he spent with his family, rarely working evenings or weekends. He maintained his disciplined worship practices” (page 61).

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Good to Great – Chapter 2: Level 5 Leadership Key Points

Posted on August 7th, 2008 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Good to Great.

• “Level 5″ refers to a five-level hierarchy of executive capabilities, with Level 5 at the top. Level 5 leaders embody a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional well. They are ambitious, to bsure, but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves.
• Level 5 leaders set up their successors for even greater success in the next generation, whereas egocentric Level 4 leaders often set up their successors for failure.
• Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard the decisions.
• Level 5 leaders look out the window to attribute success to factors other than themselves. When things go poorly, however, they look in the mirror and blame themselves, taking full responsibility.

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Good to Great – Chapter 2: Level 5 Leadership

Posted on August 7th, 2008 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Good to Great.

“You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit – Harry S. Truman” (page 17).

“A Level 5 leader – an individual who blends extreme personal humility with intense professional will” (page 21).

“Level 5 leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless” (page 22).

“Ambition first and foremost for the company and concern for its success rather than for one’s own riches and personal renown. Level 5 leaders want to see the company even more successful in the next generation, comfortable with the idea that most people won’t even know that the roots of that success trace back to their efforts” (page 26).

“In contrast to the very I-centric style of comparison leaders, we were struck by how the good-to-great leaders didn’t talk about themselves…Those who worked with or wrote about the good-to-great leaders continually used words like quiet, humble, modest, reserved, shy, gracious, mild-mannered, self-effacing, understated, did not believe his own clippings; an so forth” (page 27).

“The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extra-ordinary results” (page 28).

“It is very important to grasp that Level 5 leadership is not just about humility and modesty. It is equally about ferocious resolve, an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the company great”(page 30).

“Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce results. They will sell the mills or fire their brother, if that’s what it takes to make the company great” (page 30).

“Ten out of eleven good-to-great CEO’s came from inside the company, three of them by family inheritance. The comparison companies turned to outsiders with six times greater frequency-yet they failed to produce sustained great results”(page 32).

“Level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion created to factors outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck). At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly. The comparison leaders did just the opposite. They’d look out the window for something or someone outside themselves to blame for poor results, but would preen in front of the mirror and credit themselves when things went well”(page 35).

Summary: The two Sides of Level 5 Leadership (page 36).

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Good to Great – Chapter 1: Good is the Enemy of Great

Posted on July 1st, 2008 by Brian Sparks.
Categories: Good to Great.

“Good is the enemy of great.
“And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great” (page 1).

Nine surprises in great companies

1. Larger-than-life, celebrity leaders who ride in from the outside are negatively correlated with taking a company from good to great. Ten of eleven good-to-great CEOs came from the inside the company.
2. We found no systematic pattern linking specific forms of executive compensation to the process of going from good to great. The idea that the structure of executive compensation is a key driver in corporate performance is simply not supported by the data.
3. There is no evidence that the good-to-great companies spent more time on long-ranger strategic planning than the comparison companies.
4. The good-to-great companies did not focus principally on what to do to become great; they focused equally on whatnot to do and what to stop doing.
5. The good-to-great companies paid scant attention to managing change, motivating people, or creating alignment. Under the right conditions, the problems of commitment, alignment, motivation, and change largely melt away.
6. Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice. (page 10-11).

Framework of concepts

1. Level 5 leadership. We were surprised, shocked really, to discover the type of leadership required for turning a good company into a great one…Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy-these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
2. First Who…Then What. We expected that good-to-great leders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. We found instead that they first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats-and then they figured out where to drive it. The old adage “People are your most important asset” turns out to be wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are. [We have deacons who wouldn't know how to serve if it sat in their lap and called them mommy.]
3. Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith). You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
4. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles).
5. A Culture of Discipline. When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls.
6. Technology Accelerators. (page 12-13).

“Those who launch revolutions, dramatic change programs, and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap from good to great. No matter how dramatic the end result, the good-to-great transformations never happened in one fell swoop. There was no ingle defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, the process resembled relentlessly pushing a gieant heavy flywheel in one direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond” (page 14).

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