W h y s o m e c o m p a n I e s m a k e t h e
Download 3.69 Mb. View original pdf
|
| W H Y GREATNESS During a break at a seminar that I gave to a group of my ex-students from Stanford, one came up tome, brow furrowed. "Maybe I'm just not ambitious enough" he said. "But I don't really want to build a huge company. Is there something wrong with that" Not at all" I replied. "Greatness doesn't depend on size" I then told him Good to Great about Sina Simantob, who runs the building where I have my research laboratory. Sina has created a truly great institution. It's an old 1892 school building that has been renovated into the most extraordinary space, decorated and maintained with tremendous attention to detail, bordering on perfection. By one definition of results-attracting the most interesting people in Boulder, setting a standard that other local buildings measure themselves against, and generating the highest profit per foot of space-his small enterprise is truly a great institution in my hometown. Simantob has never defined greatness by size, and there is no reason for him to. The student paused fora moment, then said "Okay, I accept that I don't need to build a big company in order to have a great company. But even so, why should I try to build a great company What if I just want to be successful" The question brought me up short. This was not a lazy person asking he'd started his own business as a young man, put himself through law school, and after graduate school became a driven entrepreneur. He has remarkable energy, an intense and infectious enthusiasm. Of all the students I've known over the years, he is one that I have little doubt will be enormously successful. Yet he questions the whole idea of trying to build something great and lasting. I can offer two answers. First, I believe that it is no harder to build something great than to build something good. It might be statistically more rare to reach greatness, but it does not require more suffering than perpetuating mediocrity. Indeed, if some of the comparison companies in our study are any indication, it involves less suffering, and perhaps even less work. The beauty and power of the research findings is that they can radically simplify our lives while increasing our effectiveness. There is great solace in the simple fact of clarity-about what is vital, and what is not. 206 Collins Let me illustrate this point with a nonbusiness example, the last story of the book. The coaching staff of a high school cross-country running team recently got together for dinner after winning its second state championship in two years. The program had been transformed in the previous five years from good (top twenty in the state) to great (consistent contenders for the state championship, on both the boys' and girls teams. I don't get it" said one of the coaches. "Why are we so successful We don't work any harder than other teams. And what we do is just so simple. Why does it work" He was referring to the Hedgehog Concept of the program, captured in the simple statement We run best at the end. We run best at the end of workouts. We run best at the end of races. And we run best at the end of the season, when it counts the most. Everything is geared to this simple idea, and the coaching staff knows how to create this effect better than any other team in the state. For example, they place a coach at the mile mark (of a mile race) to collect data as the runners go past. But unlike most teams, which collect time splits (minutes-per-mile running pace, this team collects place splits (what place the runners are in as they go by. Then the coaches calculate not how fast the runners go, but how many , competitors they pass at the end of the race, from mile 2 to the finish. They then use this data to award "head bones" after each race. (Head bones are beads in the shape of shrunken skulls, which the kids make into necklaces and bracelets, symbolizing their vanquished competitors) The kids learn how to pace themselves, and race with confidence "We run best at the end" they think at the end of a hard race. "So, if I'm hurting bad, then my competitors must hurt a whole lot worse" Of equal importance is what they don't waste energy on. For example, when the head coach took over the program, she found herself burdened with expectations to do "fun programs" and "rah-rah stuff" to motivate the kids and keep them interested-parties, and special trips, and shopping adventures to Nike outlets, and inspirational speeches. She quickly put an end to nearly all that distracting (and time-consuming) activity. "Look" she said, "this program will be built on the idea that Download 3.69 Mb. Share with your friends:
|