Category Archives: Book Review

Good to Great Leadership

Book Review, Leadership

What I find fascinating in Good to Great by Jim Collins is the issue of leadership. Through research conducted on companies in the USA, Collins found that good companies which became great companies had leaders who were ‘self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy‘. They were more like ‘Lincoln and Socrates rather than Patton or Caesar’.

This finding flies in the face of popular culture where successful corporate CEOs are perceived as being brash, egocentric, high profile leaders with big personalities.  In today’s world Donald Trump comes to mind as someone regarded in the eyes of the public as being a highly successful CEO type.

Collins found that great leaders are incredibly ambitious but their ambition is for their institution and not themselves.  Great leaders were also no pushovers.  They may have been humble but they had an absolute focus and stoic determination to do whatever needed to be done to make the company great.  Great leaders took personal responsibility for their actions.  When things went well they gave credit to factors outside themselves, while when things went badly they blamed themselves.

So what can we learn for our own lives?  We can learn that we need to be humble.  We need to praise and give credit to the people around us – give credit where credit is due.  We need focus on building the institution we work with rather than focusing on building our own ego  and we need a ‘ferocious resolve’ to do what needs to be done.   We also need to question the popular perception of leadership and realise that larger than life, egocentric type CEOs may not be as good as they seem.

Perhaps you are a potential ‘Good to Great’ leader but may have thought of yourself as too shy or humble to be a great leader?  In that case you need to think again – you may be just the type of leader your institution and the world needs.

Best Wishes,

Tom

PS More lessons from the book next week.  In the meantime have a look at Jim Collins’s website for further information and resources.

Grab your copy of Good to Great from Amazon:

The not to do list

Book Review

We are all familiar with the to do list.  I hate these and do not have them.  I have themes (such as health, career etc) in my life and goals around these themes.  Each day I decide three things that I am going to do today.  That’s it.  Just three things.  These three things must be important or they do not make it on my short list.  If you make an open ended to-do list then all kinds of things can be there.  Even the unimportant.  The danger is then that you will focus on just getting things done on the list rather than focusing on getting important things done.  We will be very busy but not achieve much.

Another concept that I think is a great idea is the not to do list.  There are things that we do that we shouldn’t do.  For example I used to start my day with email.  I put that on my not to do list and now I get 2 hours work done related to important goals before opening my email.  This makes me much more productive.  I found that even if I just scanned my email before working on something important that my mind would continue to be distracted by the email.  Another thing on my not to do list is not work after 9pm.  No matter what I am doing its time to switch off the computer and stop.  Rest, relaxation, family time and sleep are more important and by that stage I have done enough for the day.

At the moment I am reading the book ‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins as to why good companies become great companies.  Interestingly great companies focus on what to do but also focus equally on what not to do and what to stop doing.  We can also apply this learning to our own lives.

How about you:  What do you need to stop doing?

PS I will be discussing other lessons from Good to Great that we can learn and apply in our personal lives over the coming weeks.