《从优秀到卓越》是超级畅销书《基业长青》的作者柯林斯的又一力作，它描绘了优秀公司实现向卓越公司跨越的宏伟蓝图。《基业长青》揭示了公司保持卓越的秘诀，但书中提到的公司自始至终都出类拔萃。对于那些业绩平平的公司，如何才能实现从优秀到卓越的跨越呢？是不是卓越的企业都有所谓的特殊“卓越气质”？发展的瓶颈是不是真的难以突破？
针对这一问题，柯林斯和他的研究小组历时5年，阅读并系统整理了6000篇文章，记录了2000多页的专访内容，创建了3.84亿字节的电脑数据，收集了28家公司过去50年，甚至更早的所有文章，进行了大范围的定性和定量分析，得出了如何使公司从优秀到卓越的令人惊异而振奋的答案。
柯林斯发现，公司从优秀到卓越，跟从事的行业是否在潮流之中没有关系，事实上，即使是一个从事传统行业的企业，即使它最初默默无闻，它也可能卓越。柯林斯提出了一整套观点，“只要采纳并认真贯彻，几乎所有的公司都能极大改善自己的经营状况，甚至可能成为卓越公司”。
The Challenge
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning.
But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?
The Study
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?
The Standards
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.
The Comparisons
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?
Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't.
The Findings
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:
Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.
A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.
“Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”
Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?