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

Written by Morten T. Hansen

THE NEW QUESTION
Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns with another groundbreaking work, this time to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research, buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins and his colleague, Morten Hansen, enumerate the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times.

THE NEW STUDY
Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Collins's prior work by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today. With a team of more than twenty researchers, Collins and Hansen studied companies that rose to greatness - beating their industry indexes by a minimum of ten times over fifteen years - in environments characterized by big forces and rapid shifts that leaders could not predict or control. The research team then contrasted these "10X companies" to a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to achieve greatness in similarly extreme environments.

THE NEW FINDINGS
The study results were full of provocative surprises. Such as:
* The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.
* Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card in a chaotic and uncertain world; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline.
* Following the belief that leading in a "fast world" always requires "fast decisions" and "fast action" is a good way to get killed.
* The great companies changed less in reaction to a radically changing world than the comparison companies.

The authors challenge conventional wisdom with thought-provoking, sticky, and supremely practical concepts. They include 10Xers; the 20 Mile March; Fire Bullets then Cannonballs; Leading above the Death Line; Zoom Out, Then Zoom In; and the SMaC Recipe. Finally, in the last chapter, Collins and Hansen present their most provocative and original analysis: defining, quantifying, and studying the role of luck. The great companies and the leaders who built them were not luckier than the comparisons, but they did get a higher Return on Luck. This book is classic Collins: contrarian, data driven, and uplifting. He and Hansen show convincingly that, even in a chaotic and uncertain world, greatness happens by choice, not by chance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House UK Audio
• Release date: Nov 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781448134441

Morten T. Hansen

Morten T. Hansen is a management professor at the University of California, Berkeley (School of Information), and at INSEAD. Formerly a professor at Harvard Business School, Morten holds a PhD from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Fulbright scholar. He is the author of Collaboration and the winner of the Administrative Science Quarterly Award for exceptional contributions to the field of organization studies. Previously a manager with the Boston Consulting Group, Morten consults and gives talks for companies worldwide.

Reviews for Great by Choice

[mogie_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Solid perspective on what makes for success. Good planning, experience, willing to try new things without throwing away the proven things. Specific Methodical and Consistent plan. Gunshots and then cannon balls.

[neale_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book that extends the previous research and looks at what is needed to thrive in a constantly changing world. Examples from different areas of life are used as well as business examples. Some interesting insights some are counter intuitive. Highly recommend. I listened to the audio book.

[bsanner_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What is the role of luck in business, leadership, and life? Comparing similar companies in especially chaotic and uncertain industries (health care, airline, computers, etc.) Collins and Hansen’s research indicates that more than just luck separates the winners and losers. Rather, the winners – labeled 10X companies (those companies that outperformed the industry index by at least 10 times) – exhibited fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, and productive paranoia. 10X companies relied on a durable SMaC (Specific, Methodical, and Consistent) recipe – “operating practices that create a replicable and consistent success formula.” All companies, organizations, and people have a mix of good and bad luck; based on Collins and Hansen’s research, 10Xers put themselves in a position to get the best possible return on luck. An insightful, challenging and relevant work – A

[kara_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

You should absolutely read this is you're the director of a division or even the manager of a team. It'll provide you with great real-life examples you can use to inspire. (It's particularly exciting if your company is one of the ones studied.)The work behind the book is great. This is not fluffy. It's actually based on data and statistics, and I loved that.

[danstratton · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Since bursting on the business book scene with Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, Jim Collins has been a fixture at the top of the business best seller list. His research-based approach to explaining success has struck a chord in the management corridors. I first became aware of Collins after being assigned to read Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by my boss. We were attempting to turn a corner with our small company and he hoped this would give us the insight we needed to be successful.I remember watching a presentation by Collins explain the methodology of sorting through the data to find the companies to study. He explained they first looked for a question that really interested him. I can understand the theory. Without a really good question to sustain him and his team of researchers, they wouldn't have the interest to spend several years seeking the answer. And he found a really good puzzle this time. I think this is perhaps his best work.The latest research undertaking was centered around the question: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty , even chaos, and others do not? He and his team began by looking for enterprises who outperformed their industry averages by at least 10 times. Dubbed the "10Xers", they looked into what caused them to be successful when other, very similar organizations in the same environment, did not. From there, they dug into the lessons they can learn and found similar stories to describe the behavior.He begins be relating the story of the race to the South Pole by Amundsen and Scott. If you are unfamiliar with this story, the analogy alone is worth the read. Amundsen trained for the mission to the South Pole by living with eskimos, experimenting in eating sources of meat available in the Antarctic, learning to travel in snow with dog sleds and other similar preparations. Scott, on the other hand, decided to use ponies without checking see how they would hold up in the harsh conditions (they don't), investing in new, untested technology - motor sledges (the engines cracked within days) and packing lightly on the supplies (1 ton / 17 men compared to Amundsen's 3 tons / 5 men). Amundsen reach the pole first and returned safely with his men before winter set back in. Scott's team, reduced to pulling their sleds by hand, reached the pole over a month later. The entire team died, starving to death two miles from their supply cache.Powerful stories like this are employed throughout the book, each graphically emphasizing the traits of the 10Xer companies. Those traits include:The 20 Mile MarchFire Bullets, Then CannonballsLeading above the Death LineSMaC (Specific, Methodical, and Consistent), andReturn on LuckEach lesson is something that a company leadership has control over. They can replicate the results of these hyper-successful companies, if they choose. That is the key point: Companies can choose to be great. Yes, there is some luck involved, but Collins proves it isn't a matter of getting a lucky break, but what one DOES with any luck, good or bad.I can't possibly do this book justice in the few words of this review. I recommend reading this book more highly than any other book to date. The lessons he teaches are profound and simple. Every step is in reach. I believe this book to be one of the most useful of all the business books I have read. It is applicable to many cases beyond business as well. He discusses other applications to nonbusiness organizations as well. This book should be on a list to be reviewed annually by every leader of an organization. It should be discussed in staff meetings and the concepts implemented everywhere. If you only buy one book on changing an organization, make it this one.