The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers

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More About This Book

Overview

The vast majority of small businesses stay small—and not by choice. Only the most savvy and persistent—a tiny one tenth of one percent—break through to annual sales above $250 million. In The Breakthrough Company, Keith McFarland pinpoints how everyday companies become extraordinary, showing that luck is a negligible factor. Rather, breakthrough success turns out to be associated with a clearly identifiable set of strategies and skills that anyone in any business can emulate—from small startup to industry leader.

Encouraged by experts such as business legend Peter Drucker and Good to Great author Jim Collins to identify the drivers that enable a company to push past the entrepreneurial phase, McFarland spent five years building and analyzing the world’s largest growth-company performance database and interviewing more than 1,500 growth-company executives on four continents. His goal was simple: to identify the secrets of breakthrough.

The Breakthrough Company is the result. Winnowing a study pool of more than 7,000 companies down to nine that have made the transition to major-player status, McFarland highlights real-world tools and myth-busting insights that can be used by anyone wanting his or her business to join this exclusive circle. Among the book’s takeaways:

• Common wisdom holds that the founders and core entrepreneurial leaders of a company must step aside for the business to reach the next level. Not true—as long as founders “crown the company” instead of themselves.
• It’s not reckless to make ever-escalating bets on your company’s future, even going nose to nose with competitors many times your size. In fact, it turns out that the only safety comes in constantly upping the ante in exactly this way.
• A Business Bermuda Triangle does exist, gobbling up companies on the verge of breakthrough. Presented here are three ways to navigate this potentially deadly hazard successfully.
• However good you are—or think you are—you can’t do it alone. Learn how to surround your company with networks of outside resources, aka “scaffolding,” and how to enlist the aid of “insultants”—people who are willing to question a firm’s existing assumptions and ways of doing business.

With powerful and specific action steps concluding each chapter—and invaluable advice on virtually every page from business leaders who’ve taken their companies to extraordinary levels of growth and profitability—The Breakthrough Company is one of the most provocative, inspiring, and instructive business books you’ll ever read.

From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780307352194
  • Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 9/1/2009
  • Pages: 304
  • Sales rank: 104,317
  • Product dimensions: 5.09 (w) x 7.99 (h) x 0.68 (d)

Meet the Author

KEITH R. McFARLAND is one of the nation’s leading business consultants, having worked with corporations such as Microsoft, Motorola, Morgan Stanley, Vans, and House of Blues. A regular columnist for BusinessWeek, McFarland formerly served as CEO of technology firms Nivo International and Collectech Systems, and as dean of the Pepperdine University School of Business.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Throwing the Dyno 9

3 Crowning the Company 27

4 Upping the Ante 55

5 Building Company Character 93

6 Navigating the Business Bermuda Triangle 121

7 Erecting Scaffolding 145

8 Enlisting Insultants 167

9 Graduating from Tough Times U 187

10 Building Breakthrough Capabilities 201

Afterword: Post-Breakthrough - Avoiding Breakdown 225

Research Note A 229

Research Note B 235

Research Note C 247

Endnotes 249

Index 262

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Sort by: Showing all of 7 Customer Reviews

  • Posted January 24, 2010

    Must Read for Entrepreneurs

    The Breakthrough Company is a must read for anyone who is an owner or senior manager of a small to medium size company. Anyone with business experience will understand the examples and how they apply to both themselves and their company. You will be tempted to use the book as a "cook book", but I strongly recommend you read the entire book. Over and over again.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted February 26, 2008

    A reviewer

    The author has the beginnings of good ideas but misstated facts about subject and comparison companies makes you wonder if he is bending the facts to support partially substantiated theories. Lack of complete disclosure of sources further erodes credibility.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

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    Posted February 16, 2010

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    Posted February 13, 2010

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