Good to Great. By Jim Collins

I always find it kind of humorous when I read business books and actually enjoy them.  I find it funny some of the things I find interesting and entertaining.  This book was very informative and entertaining at the same time.  I actually enjoy the process of learning something new that I had not known before or deepening my knowledge on a subject I am already familiar with.  I as continue in my career, I strive to become a better employee and leader so that is why I frequently read books on leadership and business in general.  Although Good to Great is the book that followed Jim Collins best seller Built to Last, the contents of this book are more of a prequel to Built to Last.  Good to Great sets out to answer the question "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?"  The main conclusions and observations were:

• The CEOs were already apart of the company.  They were not outside hired guns.  They were individuals  who combined personal humility and professional will to focus on making the company great.
• Get rid of the wrong people, and hire the right ones and then put the right people in the right jobs. Then establish a culture of putting out extraordinary effort
• Face the brutal facts.  Spend most of the time staring and thinking about the hardest facts about the company's situation.
• Develop the simple concept of constantly improving performance.
• Establish and maintain a corporate culture of discipline built around commitments, with freedom about how to meet those promises.
• Use technology to accelerate progress when it fits the company's concept of who it wants to be.  Technology is never a catalyst to progress or success, only an accelerant or amplifier.
• Build momentum from consistent effort.  No company had sustained greatness starting from a single event.  All of them slowly, steadily, moved their companies to where they wanted to be one step at a time.  Slow and steady wins the race.

Some of these points go against common business practice but make sense.  Definitely a business book worth reading.