"This carefully researched and well-written book disproves most of the current management hype--from the cult of the superhuman CEO to the cult of IT to the acquisitions and merger mania. It will not enable mediocrity to become competence. But it should enable competence to become excellence."--Peter F. Drucker"

A book CEOs can't wait to buy."-- USA Today

THE CHALLENGE

Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.

But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

THE STUDY

For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

THE STANDARDS

Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

Acknowledgments

Preface

Good Is the Enemy of Great

Level 5 Leadership

First Who... Then What

Confront the Brutal Facts

(Yet Never Lose Faith)

The Hedgehog Concept

(Simplicity within the Three Circles)

A Culture of Discipline

Technology Accelerators

The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

From Good to Great to Built to Last

PILOGUE: Frequently Asked Questions

Research Appendices

Notes

Index