Great by Choice

How many times have you heard popular business authors say 'break all the rules', 'innovate or die', 'act now!' and 'be bold!'? All this sounds good, but is it true? Mr. Collins book brings a realistic, pragmatic and actionable view of what makes a business successful - amid all the hype. His book focuses on three success factors: fanatic discipline, empirical creativity and practical paranoia. Each of these factors grounded in significant research. For example, with the passing of Steve Jobs, there's lots of talk about the importance of innovation. Mr. Collins work puts innovation in proper perspective by showing that companies need a certain level of innovation in their companies to survive, but companies that innovated a lot, tended to get into trouble. This is where the book cuts through the hype and puts innovation into a realistic context.

Who is this book for? Here's the amazing thing about this book: you can apply these principles to a major corporation, non-profit, church, or even to yourself! If you're a leader of any size organization, you'll walk away from this book with stuff you can start doing on Monday. This book continues Mr. Collins outstanding series of books: Built to Last, Good to Great - everyone of them a home run.

Whether you are an entrepreneur, investor or a manager this book provides useful information in a thought provoking and approachable way.

The book discusses how a range of different companies succeeded in turbulent business climates, and relates the lessons learned to other ventures such as scaling Everest and reaching the South Pole. It is immensely useful not only in improving how you manage, but also in helping you identify well managed companies (hence why I suggest this read for investors as well).

While I class buying this book as research, it has also been one of the most entertaining and engaging books I have heard this year. The only down side for me was the narration which is a little choppy, however listening to the book at 2x speed alleviated this.

Needless to say I heartily recommend this book to anyone wanting to quantify what makes some companies super successful. Anyone with even a passing interest in this field will find its stories hugely interesting ind insightful.

I know Jim Collins is a brilliant guy, and I enjoyed reading his book Good to Great. I don't know why he was chosen to read this book, however, because his performance is unendurable. I don't know whether I can get past chapter 2.

If you're interested in purchasing, please listen to the sound sample to see whether you are comfortable with his reading style.

Although a little redundant, the content was good. I think the read would have been better if performed by a different narrator.

Collins should not have tried to read this.
It is odd how bad the read is: Stilted, odd mid-sentence pauses, generally disconnected.
The book itself is good. The reading of it was distracting.

I like Jim Collins Books. Actually my favorite is

Jim Collins may be great in person but his over-articulation of words had me listening to that more than what he was saying. It became distracting. I tried 3 times and still could not get past the 2nd chapter.

I think this is a great book and I was excited to listen to it, but the narration on this book is so over the top that it kills it for me.

Don't know.

Either toning down the narration or finding a professional reader.

I can't cut anything, I'm only 30 mins. into it and the narration of the book is making it painful for me to finish it.

No. I would purchase the book and read it to myself. The book has some good concepts, and the stories are easy to relate to. The author's narration is simply intolerable.

It seems to be the first time that his author has read his own book. The narration is only slightly tolerable on 2x speed. This books needs to be re-recorded by a professional reader.

The content is decent and the research methods seem solid. Although there wasn't a great deal surprising or innovative, I thought it was a very good summary of what conscious efforts and decisions are required for a great company to be built and maintained. I especially like the idea of taking active responsible for your (or your company's) destiny, rather than being a passive actor or acceptor. The heroes in this book made their own luck. What really ruined this audiobook for me to the point of me not wanting to finish listening was the the narrator. This is the worst reading of a book I have encountered thus far. The enunciation was so exaggerated and speaking so stilted, and at times so laboriously slow that it just made me frustrated and annoyed. So I would recommend this book, but not in audio form.

Probably not if they continue with this narrator

See above. Speak in NORMAL English, more conversationally, in a normal pace. It's laudible to try to pronounce your consonants (many Americans have virtually stopped this, in the age of the

This book is based on research about organizations that do well despite a constantly changing environment. Since that latter phrase applies to all of us, there is something for everyone in this book. It’s chock of ideas for how organizations and their leaders can ride the wave of uncertainty that seems to be the only constant in organizational life these days. All these ideas come together in what is referred to in the Art of Hosting as “the chaordic path” – the path between chaos and order. An organization that can effectively navigate that path will develop strength and clarity, and the successful journey requires a leader (or leaders) who can discern the nuances between how much order and how much chaos will illuminate the path. It’s a tricky process, and this book highlights this.

That said, I have one caveat to throw in. This book was written by men about men, so it did not always resonate with me. In particular, when the authors describe the characteristics of 10xers, the term they use to describe leaders of these successful organizations, I had to ask, “Whose definition of success? Do these guys have a life?” It seemed to me that the only measurement of success was the bottom line. In this day and age, I truly believe that a more accurate measure of success is the triple bottom line. Organizations can no longer focus solely on profit to the exclusion of social and environmental impact.