I really liked  ”Good to Great” and the information presented therein. One of my favorite things about it is the nature of the research project that made it. They didn’t just write opinions but had evidence and numbers to show the success of the great companies. Then they came up with concepts to explain the numbers.    

The Bus.

Get the right people on the bus is on of the simplest analogies that I have ever heard but it makes so much senses. The author with this example is teaching us about how people the most important part of a company. In the good to great study all the great companies had level 5 leaders and they all had great management that understood this concept. The expression if you have the right people on the bus and in the right seat (people in the right position) that you can go anywhere or do anything and be successful. This means that the first thing and most important thing in a company are its employees. Having the right people in the company will enable the company to succeed.  The author says get the right people, then decide were to go. 

An important thing to note is that sometimes we can have the right person on the bus but in the wrong seat. They have the right stuff it just not being applied like it should. This could be someone for example that is currently working with numbers or analyzing that is trying hard coming up with ideas and pulling his own weight, but slows down the process. This person has a lot of good useful traits and maybe just need to be moved to sales or something where they can excel.     

I like in the book the example of the steal company that relocated itself to a community with many farmers who had good hard work ethic. Nucor’s thinking was work ethic is something that you can’t teach someone, but you can teach a farmer to make steal. So they would work 5 people like 10 and pay them like 8. So everyone gets ahead. They first looked for the right people and because of this they became very successful.

Even though I really don’t agree with what they do, Phillip Morese’s decision to put there best man on the international end of things was a great idea. Putting the right person in the right seat. They were able to take that part of the market by storm because they had the right person on the right seat. In I learn for this Put your best person on best opportunities. This will make the opportunities develop like they should.

   Level 5 leaders 

Even thought the research team that did the study for the book didn’t want leadership to be part of the book, they included it after undeniable evidences that it too was a key factor. But what they fount wasn’t something that would be expected. The leaders that took their companies from good to great were not the hotshot show-off people. They were people who channeled ego away from themselves and had the larger goal of building great company not themselves. They were people who Look out window to attribute success to factors other that themselves and look in the mirror taking full responsibility when things that went wrong. So they were not egocentric that not that big of a deal in my mind, but what is, is their will power to do what ever it took to help the company become great.  I think that I have learned already from the gospel about the humility enough to know that I still have a lot of work to do. The part to me that seams harder is the will and the strength to make a decision and stick with it. That is the part that worries me the most because I don’t know how to develop that and make it stronger.  

Decision making 

The key to decision making in this book is to in a single phrase have all the right information and having it so evident that it looks obvious. The author is not saying not to dream, Dreams and visions are good and help push forward. The author states “There is nothing wrong with pursuing a vision for greatness, but must continual refine the path to greatness with brutal facts of reality.” So we learn that we need to have a vision but be willing to adapt that vision to the facts. Thus facts become very important. A great example from the book is about Winston Churchill and his efforts in WWII. He had vision but heavily relied on facts, he even had a special statistical unit to provide him with these facts. 

In business we need to get these facts from employees as well as customers sources. This is done by creating climates were truth can be heard. The book gives four ways to create such a climate. 

1. Lead with questions not answers (trying to understand them and the issues) 

2. Engage in dialog and debate (not group think)

3. Conduct autopsies with out blame

4. Build red flag mechanisms. (Turn info in to info that cant be ignored)   

Before I go on, all of these ideas are self-explanatory but the red flag mechanisms. Red flags are things that get attention and also tells of a problem. A bold example of this is a program called Short Pay. Its gives the customer the opportunity to pay or not to pay. If they found something that didn’t meet their expectations they circle that thing on the invoice and deducted it form invoice total. That would catch anyone’s attention very quickly. By doing this the company had feedback from customers that they had to fix. So it became feedback that can’t be ignored. 

Now to gain the information needed from parts 1-3 above the book suggest making a council. Then suggest that the council be made up of the following 11 things:  

1 Device to gain understanding

2 5 to 12 people

3 Members argue and debate to search for understanding not for self

4 All members retain respect of other council members 

5 Members have a range of perspective 

6 Made up of members of management team but not limited to them

7 Is a standing body

8 Meets frequently one a week once 

9 Doesn’t end in consensus, but all agree in the end  

10 Usually an informal body not listed on formal documents

11 Council has range of possible names 

To the extent that I can in IBC in the financial part of things anyway I am trying to apply the council talked about, also in our executive meeting I feel like we have a very open conversation that follows the idea of the council. In financial meeting when time permits at least, we debate different ideas. However sometimes I express my opinion and that seems to halt the conversation sometimes. Also we have had one case at least were we did not all agree on the subject entirely but we decide to try one of the options.     

Unwavering faith admits the brutal facts 

 ( Stockdale paradox)

Our natural tendency is to hide and dread bad news, the brutal facts that come our way. But buy doing this and ignoring them, it only makes the situation worse. It’s like being in a sinking boat but ignoring the fact that it is sinking. We need to face the brutal facts and use them to your advantage, like the general who burned the boats after landing to show there was only one option and also showing a great deal of faith 

The Stockdale paradox comes from a POW who never lost faith in the end of the story; he turned experience in defining event of his life. He also found that those who didn’t face the brutal facts of reality in the POW camp, the optimists,  never made it out. They were always saying will be out by Christmas, or Easter, and when it never came around they just quit and died in broken heart. Stockdale states “you have to have discipline to face the most brutal facts; you have to have faith that in the end you will prevail.”  

If we fail to face the brutal facts in a company it will not only poetically destroy the company it will un-motivate the people you have on the bus. I almost saw the un-motivating part first hand in a company meeting I wanted to keep some information from everyone about what we needed to hit but give it as a motivation goal. They wanted to know the brutal facts and know that as CFO and executive team that we knew them. It became a bit of concern for a minute until we resolved it and told everyone the brutal facts.  

Hedgehog

The Hedgehog concept comes from a story about a fox and a hedgehog. The fox knows a lot, and the hedgehog knows one thing. The fox attacks the hedgehog and fails and then tries to come up with new ways to attack the hedgehog. And the one thing the hedgehog dose is protect himself and he dose it well. Foxes pursue many ends at the same time and see world in it complexity. Hedgehogs simplify the complicated world into simple organizing idea. I think a lot of time I am more of a hedgehog as I try to get the main idea and then can expand from there if needed. I always saw it as just good way to learn things, but they say it actually make a huge difference in business. This is because hedgehogs simplify things and then focus on them. Foxes can’t seem to make up there minds about much. 

A funny thing with the hedge hog concept that came to me reading the last page of the book. I realized the answer to a question that has bugged at me for two years now and was actually thinking of this last week. At the end of my mission I was a zone leader and was trying as hard as I could to make the zone successful. As you know that is largely determined by baptisms. My first month in the zone as senior zone leader we had 7 baptisms in the zone, for which I was only there half the month. The next months were something like 4, 3,and 2. Not exactly what I had hoped for. In fact I remember talking to my mission president on my final interview and reporting my stewardship of the zone over the past few months. I quickly reported my efforts as there were some 15 of us leaving the next day and all having to be interviewed that night. I can remember having the heaviest heart I had ever had and quoting Jacob 5 saying what more could I have done felling like a failure at the time. 

Now for the hedgehog part of the story, when I arrived at the zone I found things that I didn’t like. One, most of the baptisms were children or single people. And two most of the investigators were “eternal ones.” So I set my sights on a hedgehog concept which was families and new investigators. The other leaders and I would in meeting drill, looking for families and would set goals to contact 10 new people every day and every man (the man being the hardest part of the family) that we saw in the streets. Even thought not all the elders took the goal to heart and worked for it with purpose, those that did started to gain momentum and excitement. I left the mission on the 6th of March and at that time of the month we had no baptisms however months later I found out that by the end of the month 8 or 9 people were baptized in the zone and for the most part were families. I can now see why I was called as a stewarded at that time and how what I did was in fact the hedgehog concept that affected, in time the zone.          

The 3 circles

The 3 circles is a key to the hedgehog concept because it shows how to form and use the concept. First for something to be a hedgehog concept it should be an answer to the following 3 questions. 

1 1 What can be the best in the world at? What not?    

2 What drives your economic engine? Profit per x    

3 What you are deeply passionate about?        

To find what we can be that best at we have to set aside egos and set aside what we can’t be best in the world at. Wells Fargo for example stopped international growth and focused on the west. Important to note Circle 1 is not a plan to be the best or goal, it is an understanding at what we can be the best at, it is egoless. Circle 2 is finding one thing that will have the greatest monetary impact on the business. Circle 3 is loving your job and wanting it to succeed. Just like the CEO of the cigarette company who really enjoy smocking. By forming your hedgehog concept on this three circles will be able to out last the hard times and come out on top.