Great by Choice Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Brief Summary

Successful businessmen and women should never rely on luck or chance to determine the future of their company. They should work hard, stay focused on their goals, and use evidence-based proof for how to proceed. They should be prepared for anything because the world is a chaotic place and could change at any moment.

Every company has some amount of luck, but preparation is the thing that will see your company through both good and bad times, not good fortune.

About the Author

James “Jim” Collins was born in Aurora, Colorado in 1958. He is an author, speaker, researcher, and business consultant. He travels the country speaking about business management, growth, and sustainability. Since 1995, he has been running his own management laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where he teaches corporate leaders better ways to run their businesses and conducts his own research into the topic.

Morten T. Hansen is a Norwegian-American author, professor, motivational speaker, and management theorist. He has degrees from the University of Oslo, the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, the London School of Economics, and Stanford University, where he was also a Fulbright Scholar and received an award for his academic performance. He is now a tenured professor at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as a member of the faculty at Apple University.

Topics

Entrepreneurship Management & Leadership

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Key Insights

It is no secret that the constantly changing world often puts many companies out of business because they just can’t keep up with the chaos. In Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen explain how some businesses don’t just get through these tough times -- they actually grow and flourish because of them.

The success of a company is not based on innovation or risk-taking or boldness. It is based on discipline, learning through thorough research and evidence, and a near-paranoia about the possibility of failure. Luck has no place in a successful business plan. Everything must be done with intention if one wants to succeed even in the midst of all the uncertainty in the world.

Be Prepared

To illustrate the importance of being prepared is not just the business world, but the world in general, the authors use the example of two teams of explorers who were in competition to see who would be the first to reach the South Pole.

Roald Amundsen and his team from Norway beat Robert Falcon Scott and his British team by 34 days. But Scott’s misfortune didn’t stop there. Not only did he and his team lose the race to the Pole, they then froze to death in the icy tundra. So why did Amundsen and his team make it to the South Pole first and make it back home safe and sound when their competitors didn’t?

The answer is preparation.

Amundsen prepared for years before the trek. He went around the world gathering knowledge, especially from the Eskimos, about how to survive the deadly conditions of the Arctic. He tested every possible food source he could possibly come across on his journey, even trying things like dolphin meat. He made sure his team had more supplies than they needed and that they marked their trail with black flags to make it stand out against the white, snowy landscape.

Scott’s team, on the other hand, didn’t have nearly as many supplies, and they counted on new, unproven technology like motor sleds to travel (unlike Amundsen, who used tried-and-trusted Eskimo dog sleds) without knowing beforehand if they would even work. These sleds failed, their food ran out, and they ultimately perished, all because they weren’t adequately prepared.

Neither team could possibly know exactly what the trek had in store for them, but Amundsen was prepared for any possible trouble he could run into, which is why, in the end, his team was successful.

This same idea can be applied to business as well: even if the future can’t be predicted, the key is to be prepared for anything the world might throw your way.

What We Can Learn from 10Xers

10Xers are businesses that have outperformed their competitors by a factor of at least ten in a given time frame. The book uses these companies as an example of what to do better, and how to thrive in unpredictable conditions that can easily sink other companies.

There are three keys to...