Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All

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More About This Book

Overview

The new question Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns with another groundbreaking work, this time to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research, buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins and his colleague, Morten Hansen, enumerate the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times.

The new study
Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Collins’s prior work by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today.

With a team of more than twenty researchers, Collins and Hansen studied companies that rose to greatness—beating their industry indexes by a minimum of ten times over fifteen years—in environments characterized by big forces and rapid shifts that leaders could not predict or control. The research team then contrasted these “10X companies” to a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to achieve greatness in similarly extreme environments.

The new findings The study results were full of provocative surprises. Such as:

  • The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.
  • Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card in a chaotic and uncertain world; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline.
  • Following the belief that leading in a “fast world” always requires “fast decisions” and “fast action” is a good way to get killed.
  • The great companies changed less in reaction to a radically changing world than the comparison companies.

The authors challenge conventional wisdom with thought-provoking, sticky, and supremely practical concepts. They include: 10Xers; the 20 Mile March; Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs; Leading above the Death Line; Zoom Out, Then Zoom In; and the SMaC Recipe.

Finally, in the last chapter, Collins and Hansen present their most provocative and original analysis: defining, quantifying, and studying the role of luck. The great companies and the leaders who built them were not luckier than the comparisons, but they did get a higher Return on Luck.

This book is classic Collins: contrarian, data-driven, and uplifting. He and Hansen show convincingly that, even in a chaotic and uncertain world, greatness happens by choice, not chance.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

With top-sellers like Good to Great, Great by Choice and Born to Last, Jim Collins has established his credentials as an expert observer intent on understanding what makes great enterprises work. In Great By Choice, he and co-author Morten T. Hansen apply nine years of research to explain why some companies succeed even in the most tumultuous times. Filled with examples and rigorous analysis, this book is refreshingly free of vapid pep talk. Detailed; stimulating; often counterintuitive.

Booklist
Entrepreneurs and business leaders may find the concepts in this book useful for making choices to increase their odds of building a great company.
More Reviews (2) Fewer Reviews
Financial Times
“A sensible, well-timed and precisely targeted message for companies shaken by macroeconomic crises”
Wall Street Journal
“Collins and Hansen draw some interesting and counterintuitive conclusions from their research….far from a dry work of social science. Mr. Collins has a way with words, not least with metaphor.”

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780062120991
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 10/11/2011
  • Pages: 320
  • Sales rank: 1,129
  • Product dimensions: 6.32 (w) x 9.26 (h) x 1.01 (d)

Meet the Author

Jim Collins
Jim Collins

Jim Collins is author or coauthor of six books that have sold in total more than ten million copies worldwide, including the bestsellers Good to Great, Built to Last, and How the Mighty Fall. Jim began his research and teaching career on the faculty at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. He now operates a management laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where he conducts research, teaches, and consults with executives from the corporate and social sectors.

Good To Know

Collins says he finds the writing process a difficult one. "I can average no more than a page a day of high quality output – and those are long days!" he said in our interview. "If I produce a 30 page chapter, it will take me 30 days of work. I like what Michener said: 'I am not a master writer. I am a master rewriter."'

Collins has been married to wife Joanne for 22 years; the pair got engaged four days after their first date. When I finished Good to Great, Joanne said, “It’s nice to have you back” -- even though I’d been sitting just 20 feet away in the Morris chair for all those months of writing. That’s just the nature of writing a book; it requires a degree of obsession and productive neurosis.

A passionate rock climber, Collins likes to work early in the morning and then take a break to go climbing on the cliffs of Boulder or Eldorado Canyon. "No matter how wrapped up I am in a piece of work," he says, "it all melts away when I’m focused on the next ten feet of rock. I like to return in the afternoon for a good nap of 30 minutes to two hours, followed by a late afternoon creative work session before spending the evening with Joanne."

    1. Hometown:
      Boulder, Colorado
    1. Date of Birth:
      January 25, 1958
    2. Place of Birth:
      Aurora, Colorado
    1. Education:
      B.S. in mathematical sciences, Stanford University, 1980; M.B.A., Stanford University, 1983
    2. Website:
      http://www.jimcollins.com

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Sort by: Showing all of 3 Customer Reviews

  • Posted December 9, 2011

    Make the Choice to be Great

    Following Jim Collins¿ smash success in Good to Great, he has teamed up with Morten T. Hansen to pen Great by Choice.
    The scholarly authors delve into the question: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Right off the bat, they address a common criticism of Good to Great in which some of the companies highlighted are gone or have stumbled. True, that can happen, but what the authors are seeking is to understand the historical dynasty of organizations in what made them great. In essence, just because the company is gone today, does not mean we can¿t learn from its success.
    The chapters are pretty straight forward and are scattered with charts, academic ease and anecdotal commentary. As best stated by management guru Peter Drucker, ¿the best- perhaps even the only- way to predict the future is to create it¿. That¿s exactly what you find that innovative organizations have leaders that are more discipline, empirical, and paranoid. This bizarre blend of creativity and discipline are important in today¿s uncertain world. Besides, even the most amazing great companies changed less in reaction to a radically shifting world than the comparison companies.
    The wacky results are wisdoms under the heading of the 10xers, the 20 mile March; Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs; Leaders above the Death Line; Zoom Out, Then Zoom In; and SMaC Recipe.
    Overall this book is a good read for those yearning for insight on the holy grail that makes companies great.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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    Posted May 8, 2012

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    Posted October 11, 2011

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