63 pages • 2 hours read
Jim CollinsGood to Great
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Good Is the Enemy of Great”
Collins opens this chapter with a bold, provocative claim: “Good is the enemy of great” (1). The book is based on this premise, which he arrived at as a result of one of the unanswered questions of his previous book, Built to Last. While Built to Last explored the factors that led to enduring longevity in certain companies, it didn‘t directly address the question of what made the companies great in the first place. Curious to understand this journey to greatness, and what common steps companies shared in achieving this level of success, Collins assembled a vast team of researchers who embarked on a five-year process of data collection. This process eventually became Good to Great.
Collins then explains the four phases of their methodology. The first, which he calls “the Search,” consisted of finding companies that had reached stock returns three or more times the general market for at least 15 years, after a 15-year period of performing at or below the general stock market, and that demonstrated an observable transition between these two 15-year periods; this phase led his team to identify 11 companies. Phase 2 (“Compared to What?”) consisted of selecting companies that could serve as apt comparisons to the companies compiled during Phase 1; this process yielded 11 direct comparison companies, plus six “unsustained” comparisons, which experienced flashes of greatness but didn’t sustain it. Phase 3 (“Inside the Black Box”) consisted of deep analysis of each company, closely studying elements such as strategy, technology, and leadership in order to fully understand the history, context, and performance of each of the 28 companies. Phase 4 (“Chaos to Concept”) consisted of interpreting and organizing the data into digestible findings.
Collins concludes the chapter by previewing the rest of the book, which is organized by chapters focused on particular elements of the good-to-great process. The goal, according to Collins, is to understand the findings in such a way that the principles become universal. This is not a book about a set of specific companies, but about the timeless concepts their operations reveal.
Chapter 1 Analysis
In this chapter, Collins establishes both the motivation and the methodology behind the book. He provides the context for Good to Great within the scope of his own work, as he describes how this book actually acts as a prequel to Built to Last. In terms of motivation, Collins cites his own curiosity about unanswered questions as the primary impetus for assembling this research team and compiling the data into digestible findings. Collins’s connection to the book’s material is therefore objective, at least in the sense that he plays no role in the good-to-great companies that he will dissect in the chapters that follow.
By explaining the four phases of the company selection process, Collins further illustrates his role as impartial data interpreter. This book is not a memoir of his own experiences in taking a company from good to great, but a scientific study influenced by data and financial reports. In fact, Collins’s own definition of “greatness” is itself objective. In common vernacular, “greatness” often consists of more intangible and subjective qualities, such as eminence or repute. For Collins, however, the “great” companies are simply the ones that provided the best return on investment over time when compared to the general stock market. This definition reveals a highly utilitarian view of the business world, which is potentially problematic in more contemporary contexts, where we often judge companies not only by their profits but by their social and environmental contributions.
