Good To Great
an attempt to apply the Jim
Collins theories to the world of
hardware, software and humanware
... Steve Bergen 8/20/2005
http://www.summercore.com/goodtogreat
- Jim Collins audio on "hiring" ... click
you can listen to Jim at here
for the one called "The 5 Key Things"
- my tech workshop in Denver 2007 based on the theme of Jim Collins
click
re Good to Great
- the Hedgehog Principle ... click
- Important Audio Clip: click here to listen
to the audio clip titled "The five key things to consider when looking for the right people" ... the direct URL in case you are
copying and pasting to someone on e-mail is http://www.jimcollins.com/audio/firstWhoB2b.mp3
- more audio clips can be found
on the Web page of http://www.jimcollins.com/hall
- In the preface to his book,
Jim
Collins writes "After many
months of hiding away like a hermit
in what I call monk mode, I would
very much enjoy hearing from people
about what works for them and what
does not. I hope you will find much
of value in these pages and will
commit to applying what you learn to
whatever you do, if not to your
company, then to your social sector
work, and if not there, then at
least to your own life ...
jimcollins@aol.com ... march 27,
2001
- In asking people for a letter of recommendation for a job candidate, I have started (Feb 2006) using
this template in green ... a friend and tech colleague (John Neiers at Dalton) had told me of the
four quadrants used by Jack Welch from GE on decisions of hiring ... John had
heard this from Patrick Bassett back in the mid-1990s
- TO JOB APPLICANTS: if you have not yet written anything, I am most interested in the 5 questions below which come from Jim Collins and the Good to Great philosophy ... you can actually listen to Jim Collins speak about these 5 areas at http://www.jimcollins.com/audio/firstWhoB2b.mp3 ... I have put together my own notes on this wonderful book at http://www.summercore.com/goodtogreat/
- Core values ... what do you know about this person in terms of core values ... as Collins says, "You canŐt get people to share your core values. You can't give people new core values halfway through life ... the whole task is to find people who already have disposition to your core values."
- Managing need? High maintenance or low maintenance? As Collins says, "the right person on the bus is not somebody that you need to manage ... yes, you need to guide and teach and lead and help the person be better in his/her roles but you don't have to spend a lot of time compensating for them and managing them on a daily basis ... the moment you feel the need to manage somebody, you have probably made a hiring mistake."
- In terms of the job (e.g. MS/US Computer teacher) could this person one day be amongst the best around?
- Does this person understand -- again, as Jim Collins explains -- the difference between having a job and holding a responsibility? In other words, many people are teachers and do the job fairly well. We are looking for people at Chapin who take on the responsibilities. In other words, if the person is a MS/US Computer teacher, that means that the person sees the responsibilities (effective and enthusiastic teaching, grading, reporting, curriculum development, working with students and colleagues) as her or his areas of responsibility which is very different than seeing it as a job. Collins actually uses the phrase "productively neurotic" to describe this person ... people "who see a hole and feel a need to fill it and make it better."
- NOT RELEVANT TO SOME OF YOU ... If this candidate has been employed for you, now that you know his/her work ethic and work, would you have hired him/her. As Collins says "If it were a hiring decision all over again,
given everything that you know, having worked with this person, would you still hire? "
Below are my own notes from the book ... Steve
- page 10 ... "larger-than-life
celebrity leaders who ride in from
the outside are negatively
correlated with taking a company
from good to great" ...
- page 32 "10
of 11 good-to-great CEOs came from
inside the company, 3 by family
inheritance"
*** perhaps the
applicability here is that we cannot
hire outsiders to help change our
tech infrastructure but must do it
from a bottom up approach with the
faculty
- page 10 ... "we found no
systematic pattern linking specific
forms of executive compensation to
the process of going from good to
great" ...
- page 49 "it is who you
pay, not how you pay them" ...
- page
51 "we have the hardest working
workers in the world ... we hire 5,
work them like 10 and pay them like
8" ...
- page 53 "to let people
languish in uncertainty for months
or years, stealing precious time in
their lives that they could use to
move on to something else, when in
the end they aren't going to make it
anyway -- THAT would be ruthless. To
deal with it right up front and let
people get on with their lives --
that is RIGOROUS" ...
- page 54 from
tips on how to be rigorous "when in
doubt, don't hire -- keep looking"
...
- page 58 "it might take time to
know for certain if someone is
simply in the wrong seat or whether
he needs to get off the bus
altogether. Nonetheless, when the
good-to-great leaders knew they had
to make a people change, they would
act."
***
all of these comments make me think
a lot about HUMANWARE and how
essential this is to the the tech
growth of a school. I think about
the Red Auerbach quote at times that
"you cannot make chicken soup out of
chicken feathers."
- page 11 ... "the good-to-great
companies did not focus principally
on what to do to become great; they
focused equally on what NOT to do
and what to STOP doing"
- page 11 ... "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"
***
fascinating, since in the world of
schools, these seem like incredibly
high priorities
- page 20 ... level 5 executive
"builds enduring greatness through a
paradoxical blend of personal
humility and professional will" ...
- page 35 "level 5 leaders look out
the window to apportion credit 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"
- page 45 ... "Wells Fargo and
Fannie Mae illustrate the idea that
WHO questions come before WHAT
questions -- before vision, before
strategy, before tactics, before
organizational structure, before
technology ... I don't know where we
should take this company, but I do
know that if I start with the right
people, ask them the right
quesitons, and engage them in
vigorouos debate, we will find a way
to make this company great."
- page 60 ... "indeed, one of the
crucial elements in taking a company
from good to great is somewhat
paradoxical. You need executives, on
the one hand, who argue and debate
-- sometimes violently -- in pursuit
of the best answers, yet on the
other hand, who unify behind a
decision, regardless of parochial
interests."
- page 63 ... "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"
... too many schools have announced a big laptop
program before having the infrastructure ready with the tech team
and the faculty
- page 63 ... "the good-to-great leaders were rigorous, not ruthless,
in people decisions" ... three principles (when in doubt, don't hire; when you know you need
to make a people change, act; put your best people on your
biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems)
- page 69 ... "the good-to-great companies
infused the entire process with the brutal
facts of reality"
- page 72 ... "the moment a leader himself to become the primary
reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality,
you have a recipe for mediocrity"
- page 74 ... "one of the dominant themes of
this book is that if you have the right people on
the bus, they will be self-motivated"
- page 82 ... looking at people who had suffered serious adversity,
there were 3 categories: "those who were permanently
dispirited, those who get their life back to normal, those you use the experience
ot make them stronger"
- page 89 ... "spending time and energy
trying to "motivate" people is a waste of
effort" ... if you have the right people, they wil be self-motivated"
- page 95 ... "all the good-to-great companies attained a very simply
concept that they used as a frame of reference for all their decisions" ... hedgehog concept is a simple,
crytalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the interesection of the following 3 circles.
- Circle 1 = what you are deeply passionate about
- Circle 2 = what you can be the best in the world at
- Circle 3 = what drives your economic engine
...technology can be the hedgehog concept for a school these days because
so few schools are doing it right
- page 98 ... " a Hedgehog concept is not a goal, strategy, intention, plan to be the best ... it is an
understanding of what you can be the best at"
- page 112 ... "the Hedgehog concept is a turning point in the journey from good to great ... in most cases,
the transition date follows within a few years of the Hedgehog
Concept"
- page 114 ... "it took about FOUR years on average for the good-to-great
companies to clarify their Hedgehog Concepts"
"
- page 115 ... the Council is a standing body used by the leading
executive ... it is an informal body"
... there are schools for which there is NO TECH COUNCIL equivalent
and all decisions are made by the Tech Coordinator in a vacuum ... in some schools there is a KEY
relationship between the Tech Coordinator and a key administrator ... but technology planning and decision
making MUST NOT BE from the tech coordinator alone.