Good to Great Exercises: 21 Discussion Questions

Why do a few companies pull far ahead of their peers and stay there? Jim Collins and his research team spent five years studying 11 companies that made a leap from average results to great ones and held it for at least 15 years. What they found was less flashy than most people expect.

Use these questions with your leadership team, your board, or on your own to see where your organization stands.

Good to Great Exercises

Collins found that great companies were not led by celebrity executives or driven by fancy technology. They followed a set of steady, disciplined practices. Each one is a piece of a larger pattern he calls the flywheel, where small pushes build momentum over time.

We wrote seven exercises with 21 discussion questions.

Exercise 1. Level 5 leadership

Collins describes Level 5 leaders as people who combine deep personal humility with fierce professional will.

1. Think of a leader you know who fits that description. What do they do differently?
2. Where in your own leadership do you take credit and where do you take responsibility?
3. How could you show more humility without losing your drive?

Exercise 2. First who, then what

The book says great companies get the right people on the bus before deciding where to drive it.

1. Who on your team is in the right seat? Who might be in the wrong one?
2. How do you decide whom to hire, and what do you watch for beyond skills?
3. What would you do if someone on your team did not fit the direction you want to go?

Exercise 3. Confront the brutal facts

Collins pairs this with the Stockdale Paradox. You keep faith that you will prevail in the end while facing the harshest facts of your current reality.

1. What hard truth about your business or team are you avoiding?
2. How do people in your organization bring you bad news? Do they feel safe doing it?
3. What would you need to change to hear the truth sooner?

Exercise 4. The hedgehog concept

Collins says great companies find the overlap of three things. What you can be the best in the world at, what drives your economic engine, and what you are deeply passionate about.

1. Write one sentence for each of those three questions about your organization.
2. Where do those answers overlap, and where do they pull apart?
3. What activities could you stop doing because they sit outside that overlap?

Exercise 5. A culture of discipline

The book links freedom to discipline. Disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action reinforce each other.

1. How would you describe the culture of your team? Does it lean on rules or on responsible people?
2. Where are you making exceptions that weaken your standards?
3. What is one habit your team could adopt to become more consistent?

Exercise 6. Technology as an accelerator

Collins found that great companies picked technology carefully and used it to strengthen what they already did well.

1. Which technology in your business helps your core strengths, and which one is just a trend you followed?
2. How do you decide when to adopt something new?
3. What would you drop if you asked, "Does this actually speed up our best work?"

Exercise 7. The flywheel

Collins says great results come from steady pushes on a heavy wheel, not from one dramatic breakthrough. He contrasts this with the doom loop, where companies keep switching direction and never build momentum.

1. What is one action your organization has repeated for years that builds on itself?
2. Have you ever changed course so often that you lost momentum? What happened?
3. What is the next push on your flywheel, and who will make it?

Ideas worth remembering

Collins and his team screened 1,435 companies and found 11 that made a lasting leap. They then compared each one to a similar company that did not. The results ran against common belief. The good to great leaders were often quiet and humble, and they chose people before choosing direction.

Two ideas stand out. The Stockdale Paradox is named for Admiral James Stockdale, who survived years as a prisoner of war by keeping faith while facing hard facts. The hedgehog concept comes from an essay by Isaiah Berlin. The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

Where readers get stuck

Several of the 11 companies later struggled, and at least one went bankrupt. Collins wrote a follow up book about how strong companies decline. That makes for a good group discussion. Ask which lessons still hold up and which feel dated.

Small business owners sometimes assume the book only applies to large firms. The core ideas, like hiring well, facing facts, and building momentum, work at any size. Scale them to fit your team.

How to use these questions

These questions work well at a leadership offsite. Give each executive one exercise to prepare and ask them to lead ten minutes of discussion on it.

Alone, start with Exercise 3. Write the hardest truth you have avoided, then pick one action you can take this week to face it.

Revisit the flywheel question after a quarter. Ask what has built on itself since you last looked, and what you could add.

Putting it into practice

Start with people. Write down the names on your team and mark who is in the right seat, who might be in the wrong seat, and who you would hire again today. Have one honest conversation this week.

Next, write your three hedgehog answers on a single page and share it with your leadership group. Ask where they disagree, because the gaps usually point to the work you still need to do.

Finally, choose one action that builds momentum and repeat it every week. The flywheel turns slowly at first, and that is normal. Stay steady and the results will start to build on each other.

Read the full summary

Want the research and company stories in a shorter format? Read the Good to Great summary on Sumizeit and see how each concept fits together.

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