Great by Choice
Uncertainty, Chaos and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All
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Great by Choice
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Narrated by:
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Jim Collins
About this listen
The New Question.
Ten years after the worldwide best seller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns with another ground-breaking work, this time to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research, buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins and his colleague, Morten Hansen, enumerate the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times.
The New Study.
Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Collins's prior work by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today. With a team of more than 20 researchers, Collins and Hansen studied companies that rose to greatness - beating their industry indexes by a minimum of 10 times over 15 years - in environments characterized by big forces and rapid shifts that leaders could not predict or control. The research team then contrasted these "10X companies" to a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to achieve greatness in similarly extreme environments.
The New Findings.
The study results were full of provocative surprises. Such as:
- The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.
- Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card in a chaotic and uncertain world; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline.
- Following the belief that leading in a "fast world" always requires "fast decisions" and "fast action" is a good way to get killed.
- The great companies changed less in reaction to a radically changing world than the comparison companies.
The authors challenge conventional wisdom with thought-provoking, sticky, and supremely practical concepts. They include 10Xers; the 20 Mile March; Fire Bullets then Cannonballs; Leading above the Death Line; Zoom Out, Then Zoom In; and the SMaC Recipe. Finally, in the last chapter, Collins and Hansen present their most provocative and original analysis: defining, quantifying, and studying the role of luck.
The great companies and the leaders who built them were not luckier than the comparisons, but they did get a higher Return on Luck. This book is classic Collins: contrarian, data driven, and uplifting. He and Hansen show convincingly that, even in a chaotic and uncertain world, greatness happens by choice, not by chance.
©2011 Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers, USCritic Reviews
What listeners say about Great by Choice
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Julia
- 28-03-2015
Love it thank you!!!
The clarity and simplicity of the book was its essence. The relativity of the case studies allowed the themes to flow from chapter 1 to chapter 7
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- Leon
- 23-05-2018
Rigorous and useful
I had read good to great and wasn't sure if there would be anything new. Definitely worth a read though. It has 5 mins of acknowledgements at the end which I suspect results in not many people get to the review page
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 26-04-2021
Good lessons, well read
I prefer a book read by the writer. It gives more. This book has solid lessons for business and it’s read by Jim. The result, I think, seems to carry itself well.
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- Michelle Bourke
- 18-05-2016
Amazing reading and evidence based learnings
Jim was very specific in his annunciation which was at times useful and at others a little strange but for me it's always much more enjoyable hearing the work directly from the author because they intone every word with the intended meaning that they wrote it with.
So many great learnings I'll be applying to my growing business - it's clear I need to work on my discipline and consistency, and not inflict so much change on my organisation.
I think the most exciting component is knowing that these extreme success is a choice, not luck or just something that happens to you. And there is a formula of key good practice activities that will help you navigate to that point: I also found the analogies really memorable
and very poignant.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 18-09-2021
Encouraging, practical and motivating
A helpful & thought provoking book. The research is well presented and clearly outlined. I would recommend this book for those who want to learn & grow in their ablily to lead. I did skip forward some of the illustrations that were reinforcing an already well made point. Thank you for pointing people to hope and making a difference for good in the world.
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Great Book
An insightful read, goes into great detail and research is compelling, well worth the effort!
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- Matt
- 06-08-2016
Great audio book. Every business leader should listen
This was a fantastic listen, bringing together the key elements of the book. Having Jim Collins narrate it himself and also add extra context to the written word plus the Q&A session at the end made it even more valuable.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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- Martin
- 17-10-2020
Just because you are an author doesn't automatically make you a good orator
Jim your research is probably invaluable, but I can't listen to your voice for the next 6 hours. Do us all a favour and stick to research and writing. I have sent this book back for a refund.
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1 person found this helpful