“Good to Great”

Lesson 1: Find your Hedgehog concept.

If the lion rules the jungle, the hedgehog rules the woods. You read that right: the hedgehog.
Why? He has the most basic defense strategy of all. He knows exactly what to do in any attack
scenario: curl up and transform into an impenetrable, spiky, rock-like, indestructible fortress.
Foxes and snakes can devise as many sophisticated strategies as they want, but the hedgehog
always responds in the same way and wins every time.
According to Jim Collins, companies that go from excellent to great always come up with their
own "Hedgehog concept"—a plan they can maintain implementing for a very long time, and that
will finally propel them to the top. You must respond to three questions to determine your
hedgehog notion.

1. What are we capable of excelling at?

2. What are some things we can be enthusiastic about?
3. What important economic indicator should we pay attention to?

But don't rush; most good-to-great businesses take time to develop. Finding yours will be
difficult; it took me four years to figure it out. Walgreens, which aspires to be the best, most
convenient drugstore with the highest profit per visit, and Zappos, which aspires to provide the
best customer experience for those who buy shoes online, are two examples.

Lesson 2: Only adopt new technology if it helps you accelerate your momentum.

Anchor, Musical.ly, Vine, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter are all less than ten years old, and
there are hundreds more. Every year, we are introduced to a staggering amount of new
technology. It remains to be seen how much of it benefits us.

I'm attempting to build the best book summary website in the world, and I'm relying on
blogging—a medium now considered obsolete in every way—to do so.

Naturally, I put the new gear through its paces, but I don't bet the farm on it immediately. If you
adopt new technology solely to be a trailblazer or out of fear of missing out, you will have
difficulty integrating it with your genuine goal.

Walgreens, for example, saw its stock price fall by 40% after initially avoiding e-commerce
entirely. They meticulously planned their web strategy and used it to further their genuine goal of
becoming the best pharmacy shop, such as by offering online prescriptions for in-store pick-up.
In contrast, competitors sprang up quickly and vanished a year later.

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Keep an eye out for new developments. Before you jump on the bandwagon, make sure they will
help you develop your Hedgehog concept.

Lesson 3: Always confront uncomfortable truths head-on, but never lose faith that
you’ll work it out.

Realistic optimism is another characteristic shared by good-to-great organizations. They do not

bury their heads in the sand and deny apparent truths, nor do they give up in despair.

Accept it and move on when your company is not profitable enough to survive, or your most
recent marketing effort failed. For example, when Procter & Gamble entered the paper goods
sector, the situation for industry leaders Scott Paper and Kimberly-Clark appeared bleak.

Kimberly-Clark observed a minute of silence for P&G because they knew the big boys would
lose, but Scott Paper threw up his hands before the fight began and began to expand out, aiming
to control a few small sectors in which P&G had no business. Kimberly-Clark rose to the
occasion when given the opportunity to compete against one of the big boys.

Kimberly-Clark acquired Scott Paper twenty years later and surpassed P&G in six product
categories.

My mother likes to say that everyone cooks meals in the same water. So, while you should be
honest about the negative aspects, you should never lose faith in your ability to solve the
problem.

It's a good idea. Great agree with Seth Godin's book The Dip. I enjoy reading novels that are
based on The Dip. As previously stated, I am working to make this website the best book
summary website in the world.

For this reason, this is the third synopsis I've written today. My Hedgehog plan is to publish one
daily summary while catching up on a few days I missed. After writing more than 300
summaries this year, I'll look around and decide what to do next. However, I must first lay a solid
material foundation before competing at the major league level. (Update: I was successful in
2022! We published 365 books in the first year, and we've since published over 1,000!)

Everything in this book appears to be sound, and because everything I've done appears to be
working, I can confidently recommend it. The follow-up book, published nine years later,
focuses on how to make great companies succeed in a chaotic environment. It's also here, and it's
called Great by Choice.

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