Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All

by Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen

Ten years after his best-selling book "Good to Great," Jim Collins has published the results of another comprehensive study. His question was:

What did successful companies do differently than comparable companies in the same industry during turbulent times, i.e., in an environment that executives could not predict or control?

Specifically, Collins and his team studied so-called "10Xers": companies whose stock market value outperformed their respective industry index by at least a factor of ten over fifteen years.

The surprising result: the 10X companies had neither adapted particularly to changing circumstances nor were they more visionary or more willing to take risks than their competitors. On the contrary: they were more disciplined, extremely empirical in their approach, and hedged against a wide range of potential risks.

Collins and his team identified the following three core behaviors:

1. Fanatical Discipline: Act steadily and consistently, not erratically. Push hard and ambitiously in bad times – and hold back in good times. Growing too fast often overwhelms companies.
2. Empirical Creativity: Don't act on opinions, wisdom, or untested ideas. Instead, explore small steps in different directions, and deploy more resources only when empirical data justifies it.
3. Productive Paranoia: Constantly identify potential threats, analyze their impact, and develop mitigation plans.

The authors also examined the extent to which luck played a role in success. The result: 10X companies were no luckier than their peers, but they made more out of it.

Like its two predecessors, the book is based on empirical research yet is entertaining, inspiring, full of compelling anecdotes, and directly actionable for entrepreneurs.

🎧 Suitable as an audiobook? Yes, absolutely.

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Genres

Business Strategy Leadership Business Management Decision Making Success Entrepreneurship Change Management