W h y s o m e c o m p a n I e s m a k e t h e

Good to Great
"motivate" the kids toward it. Instead, she let the kids gain momentum, seeing for themselves-race by race, week by week-that they could beat anyone in the state. Then, one day out on a training run, one boy said to his teammates, "Hey, I think we could win state" "Yeah, I think so, too" said another. Everyone kept running, the goal quietly understood. The coaching staff never once mentioned the state championship idea until the kids saw for themselves that they could do it. This created the strongest culture of discipline possible, as the seven varsity runners felt personally responsible for winning state-a commitment made not to the coaches, but to each other. One team member even called all of his teammates the night before the state race, just to make sure they were all getting ready for bed early. (No need for the coaches to be disciplinarians on this team) Hammering through the last mile, passing competitors (We run best at the end, each kid hurt, but knew it would hurt a lot more if he had to look his teammates in the eyes as the one who failed to come through. No one failed, and the team beat every other team at the state meet by a large margin. The head coach began rebuilding the whole program around the idea of "first who" One of the assistant coaches is a pound ex-shot-putter hardly the image of a lean distance runner, but he is without question the right who He shares the values and has the traits needed to help build a great team. As the program built momentum, it attracted more kids and more great coaches. People want to be part of this spinning flywheel they want to be part of a championship team they want to be part of a first-class culture. When the cross-country team posts yet another championship banner in the gym, more kids sign up, the gene pool deepens, the team gets faster, which produces more championships, which attracts more kids, which creates even faster teams, and so forth and soon, in the infectious flywheel effect. i Are these coaches suffering more than other teams to create a great program Are they working harder No In fact, the assistant coaches have full-time professional jobs outside of coaching-engineers, computer technicians, teachers-and they work for essentially no pay, carving cious timeout of their busy lives to be part of building a great program.
They're just focusing on the right things, and not the wrong things.
They're doing virtually everything we write about in this book, within their specific situation, and not wasting time on anything that doesn't fit. Simple, clean, straightforward, elegant-and a heck of a lot of fun. The point of this story is that these ideas work. When you apply them in

208 Collins any situation, make your life and your experience better, while improving results. And along the way, you just might make what you're building great. So, I ask again If it's no harder (given these ideas, the results better, and the process so much more fun-well, why wouldn't you go for greatness To be clear, I am not suggesting that going from good to great is easy, or that every organization will successfully make the shift. By definition, it is not possible for everyone to be above average. But I am asserting that those who strive to turn good into great find the process no more painful or exhausting than those who settle for just letting things wallow along in mind-numbing mediocrity. Yes, turning good into great takes energy, but the building of momentum adds more energy back into the pool than it takes out. Conversely, perpetuating mediocrity is an inherently depressing process and drains much more energy out of the pool than it puts back in. But there is a second answer to the question of why greatness, one that is at the very heart of what motivated us to undertake this huge project in the first place the search for meaning, or more precisely, the search for meaningful work. I asked the head coach of the cross-country program why she felt compelled to make it great. She paused before answering. "That's a really good question" Long pause. really hard to answer" More pause. I guess
. . it's because I really care about what we're doing. I believe in running and the impact it can make on these kids' lives. I want them to have a great experience, and to have the experience of being part of something absolutely first class" Now for the interesting twist The coach has an MBA from an elite business school and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate in economics, having won the prize for the best undergraduate honors thesis atone of the most universities in the world. She found, however, that most of what her classmates went onto do-investment banking on Wall Street, starting Internet companies, management consulting, working for IBM, or whatever- held no meaning for her. She just didn't care enough about those endeavors to want to make them great. For her, those jobs held no meaningful purpose. And so she made the decision to search for meaningful work- work about which she would have such passion that the question, Why try for greatness would seem almost tautological. If you're doing something you care that much about, and you believe in its purpose deeply enough, then it is impossible to imagine not trying to make it great. It's just a given.

Good to Great
I've tried to imagine the Level
5 leaders of the companies studied answering the question "Why greatness" Of course, most would say Were not great-we could be so much better" But pushed to answer, Why try for greatness" I believe they would respond much like the cross- country coach. They're doing something really care about, about which they have great passion. Like Bill Hewlett, they might care first and foremost about creating a company that by virtue of its values and success has a tremendous impact on the way companies are managed around the world. Or like Ken Iverson, they might feel a crusader's purpose to obliterate the oppressive class hierarchies that cause degradation of both labor and management. Or like Darwin Smith at Kimberly-Clark, they might derive a tremendous sense of purpose from the inner quest for excellence itself, being driven from within to make anything touch the best it can be. Or perhaps like Lyle Everingham at Kroger or Cork Walgreen at
Walgreens, they might have grownup in the business and just really love it. You don't need to have some grand existential reason for why you love what you're doing or to care deeply about your work (although you might. All that matters is that you do love it and that you do care. So, the question of Why greatness is almost a nonsense question. If you're engaged in work that you love and care about, for whatever reason, then the question needs no answer. The question is not why, but how. Perhaps your quest to be part of building something great will not fall in your business life. But find it somewhere. If not incorporate life, then perhaps in making your church great. If not there, then perhaps a nonprofit, or a community organization, or a class you teach. Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done. When you do this, you will start to grow, inevitably, toward becoming a Level
5 leader. Early in the book, we wondered about how to become

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Level
5, and we suggested that you start by practicing the rest of the findings. But under what conditions will you have the drive and discipline to fully practice the other findings Perhaps it is when you care deeply enough about the work in which you are engaged, and when your responsibilities lineup with your own personal three circles. When all these pieces come together, not only does your work move toward greatness, but so does your life. For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then, you might gain that rare tranquillity that comes from knowing that had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions knowing that your short time hereon this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered.

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