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Great by Choice  By  cover art

Great by Choice

By: Jim Collins, Morten T. Hansen
Narrated by: Jim Collins
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Publisher's summary

The new question: Ten years after the worldwide best seller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? In Great by Choice, Collins and his colleague, Morten T. 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 on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today.

The new findings:

  • The best leaders were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.
  • 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.

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.

©2011 Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers

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What listeners say about Great by Choice

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Outstanding book! One of Jim Collins' best

What made the experience of listening to Great by Choice the most enjoyable?

Collins has an excellent narrating voice and clearly loves to teach on this material. He is energetic and lively. Rather than dryly 'reading' the book, he truly narrates it, often adding little bits and pieces to the story, providing value to the listener.

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Great tool in the more than ever changing world.

I like how this book, like its predecessor, is well structured in a way that can be used directly in our business and social lives.

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Not as good as good to great but it is a good read

If you could sum up Great by Choice in three words, what would they be?

Listen and Learn

What other book might you compare Great by Choice to and why?

Good to Great with a twist

What about Jim Collins???s performance did you like?

He really shows the passion and dedication into the books he works own.

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great book

incredibly insightful book about what it takes to thrive in any business circumstance. by the title it appears the book is about doing well in uncertainty, but it is actually a blueprint of how to operate a business so that you are prepared for uncertainty. It's not about what you do when uncertainty or world events happen, its what you did before all of that, that will insure your long term success.

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Just starting your career (1-10yrs)? Look no further

If your just getting started or restarting your career (1-10yrs)? Look no further. In this book Jim lays out principles for great companies/ people, and the execution required to be great by choice. “20 mile stretch and bullets before cannons” -Ramsey

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Good content

For those struggling with the narrating, try speeding it up. I listened to it at 1.40x the original speed and it was just fine. The lessons learned is worth it!

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Great as always

Always a delightful listening, an enlightening information and eye opener information.
Jim Collins always provide tools and clear data to verify its validity

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Wow This is really a Good Book !!!

Read this book ...where it is one of the Best Book. This is were it explains the Great choice made .

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Great Book!

The content was wonderful and well researched. It gives a great view into the world of how leadership plays an important role in the success of a company.

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Another great Jim Collins book

Another great book of this series from Jim Collins. The book follows a similar formula from Good to Great and Built to last, however it adds value to both books.

Concepts such as ‘20 miles march’ are presented and well define. This book is completar to Collins writings and definitely worth the time of business leaders.

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