DigitalNow: Association Leadership in the Digital Age

Keynote: Jim Collins
From Good to Great

Conference Note: The notes included here reflect those of an attendee at this conference who heard Mr. Collins' keynote presentation. The notes represent an interpretation and perspective on the messages that Mr. Collins delivered.

Key Points

• Good is the enemy of great.
• If you want to understand what makes something great you need to discuss over time and contrast / benchmark.
• What helps an organization become great? How did they "breakaway" from being good?
• There is no aah-hah (took Walgreens 8 years before it changed direction).
• When you become happy with just being good…you never have the drive to become great.
• Curiosity is a driver and how "Built to Last" came about.
• If you want to understand how a company became great, we need to look back over history.
• 4 Key measures of Associations
  • Truly superior results
  • How do you become indispensable?
  • Demonstrate "staying power"
  • Achieve regardless of who's in charge
• Attitude-the energy of leaders has no impact on a company's becoming great. (Actually, charismatic leadership is more common to "also runs.")
• Urgency for change was only 50/50.
• Promote a culture of "realized potential" and find the people who live this.
• Being great is all about disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action (creates the momentum and power).
• Data says great companies have Level 5 Leaders
  • (1) Highly capable individual
  • (2) Contributing team member
  • (3) Competent manager
  • (4) Effective Leader
  • Level 5 Leader (humility, will, trust to mission and not self)
• We need to look at pairs of companies to see why one was successful and why one was not.
• There is no such thing as one defining change, but rather changes that occur over time to make a company great.
• Define success for greatness:
  • Must have superior results
  • Need to know you're unique and are making a significant difference in the world
  • Have to have been through the "valley of death" and come out stronger
  • Must have longevity, must be institutional
• Being a charismatic leader is a liability when going from good to great.
• Most of the companies in the survey were split 50/50 on having a compelling incident that lead to the change.
• How do we overcome the institutional belief we are very good, cannot be great, but we are fine with it too?
• Focus on one thing to be the best in the world and forget everything else.
• 3 Tests:
  • Passion
  • Focus
  • Economic method for creating a "lifetime customer"
• "Stop doing lists" create more value than "to do" lists.
• Great companies "crawl, walk, then run" to make the internet fit their strategy (not other way around).

Issues/Concerns

• What's keeping you from being great?
• Didn't help people understand how anyone might become great.
• What was the aah-hah they saw that changed their path? (Internal feeling of change does not look the same from the outside.)
• Who made the difference? (More important than where are we going)
• Breakthrough results occur from a cumulative pattern of events/steps - disciplined people are a must.
• Level 5 managers are generally humble and always striving to do the job. They also knew they had to get the right people on board. They are ambitious for the organization and its industry - not for themselves.
• Level 5 managers also must have disciplined thought for dealing with adversity. Must be able to conform the brutal facts, but still have the undying belief you will succeed in the end.
• No technological disruption was instrumental in going from good to great, but they all used technology in its change.
• "Crawl, walk, run" is the process for going from good to great.
• Must emphasize that the good to great companies have:
  • Core Values
  • Core Purpose
  • Organizations must know why they are worthy of lasting
• What role did external circumstance have on becoming great? (Does not matter…data shows it's a matter of choice you make.)
• Overcome the good culture?
• Make Technology an enabler to your strategy.
• We need to have the who(s) always identified - must have the right who(s) around us to be great, not good.