The Exuberant Accountant - Scott Heintzelman

The findings include 7 critical aspects that Jim Collins has found common in great companies with sustained financial results:

Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness – a humble servant leader. Leaders who combine extreme personal humility with intense professional will - shy away from attention and focus on the goal of building a great organization.

First Who... Then What:  One of the things people assume they will find when learning about great organizations is a compelling vision or strategy around which management will gain people's commitment.  The research proved otherwise.  Great organizations and great leadership first figured out who should be on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.

Confront the Brutal Facts: Great organizations began with confronting the brutal facts of their current reality. 

The Hedgehog Concept (Foxes are cunning and pursue many ends at the same time; the Hedgehog knew one thing - and knew it well).  Great organizations figured out three things: 1. What they are deeply passionate about  2. What they can be the best in the world at doing  3. What drives their economic engine?

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. Greatness is about moving the heavy flywheel around once and then the next time it is a little easier, and the next a little easier...  Breakthrough comes when the wheel’s own heavy weight does the bulk of the work for you, with an almost unstoppable force.

The book is different from many other management books. The book is based on research, not just theory. He and his group of researchers delve into this search for what distinguishes the good companies from the great ones. The study began with a field of 1,435 companies (all selected from the Fortune 500 list as far back as 1965), they reduced that to 126 companies (based on 10-year returns to investors), then chose 19 companies (based on industry analysis), and emerged with a list of 11 good-to-great companies.

Looking at company's cumulative stock returns, compared with the market and direct comparison companies, Collins identified companies that, at some transition point, resulted in great performances compared with all others. Specifically, these companies achieved at least 3 times the market benchmark performance over 15 years.

This book is a great read that helps you focus on people and your Hedgehog Concept - the three-circle figure which is the sweet spot of entrepreneurship; where your passion lies, what drives your economic engine, and your best-in-the-world competence converge.

Anyone interested in creating a lasting positive transformation in an organization should read this book. In particular, individuals who are coaching teams or organizations should read this book since the concepts also appear to apply at a sub-organizational level.