MAP to achieve organizational greatness: Management Insights that never lose their appeal

BEYOND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 1.0, published in 1992 was an early attempt by ALISON DENNIS, SARAH MANSEL, AND GEMMA YOUNG to provide entrepreneurs with building blocks to help their companies achieve high performance, become industry leaders, and remain great for generations. Who better than Jim Collins to come up with Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, given his work in the related field of helping organizations achieve and endure greatness?

His contributions in the form of frameworks and guiding principles are well encapsulated in books like Built to last, Good to Great, Why mighty fall, etc. Concepts like Level-5 leader, Stockdale paradox, Hedgehog, Turning the flywheel, and BHAG have greatly influenced corporates thinking and decision making.

So what is new in BE 2.0. One it clearly points out the continued relevance of content shared in BE 1.0, and secondly presents a comprehensive map for new organizations to follow, to achieve and endure greatness while delivering superior outcomes and great impact.

Here is a checklist of questions, that are worth considering by every firm that aspires to achieve and sustain greatness:

1. What percent of your key positions are filled with right people for those positions? And do you have a well-defined decision-making framework to address the “develop or replace talent’ conundrum?

2. How prepared is your organization to capitalize on “Luck: the unexpected event, that can have significant consequence ”? What is your likely Return on Luck? And do leaders have the appreciation of the power of “Who Luck – the potential upside coming from stumbling into great talent”?

3. Are you motivating talent by making them align with BHAG and compelling purpose (cause) or relying only on financial incentives to motivate? BTW, are leaders thinking of converting wrong people into right people with money?

4. Is there clarity between leadership function and leadership style? And is charisma not overrated style, used to align the team then clearly articulated vision and purpose?
5. Are leaders fully sensitive to the extent to which their actions influence their team- professionally and personally? Do they appreciate the fine-line difference between providing guidance and micro-management or between empowerment and abandonment?

6. How much disciplined-thinking pervades the decision making- How strong is the commitment to embrace the genius of AND, openness to acknowledge brutal facts and stick to the core – defined in the form or hedgehog three circles? On similar lines, is the execution equally disciplined, marked with consistency, concentration and perseverance? Are leaders continually validating where are they spending time?

7. Are leaders aware of the reasons why great companies fall- and the five stages that they go through? Are they aware of the big bets strategy is relying on? And the need to reconfirm, realign and reinvent at an appropriate time to stay ahead?

8. If innovation is vital to stay competitive, how institutionalized is sourcing and channeling creative ideas, into experiments and scaling the successful ones? Is organization only relying on customer pull for ideas or also looking at technology promise to create products and services customers haven’t asked yet? Is there defined framework and structure and committed resources to truly make innovation a continual conscious and all-pervasive capability?

9. How good is the organization at tactical excellence- the essential middleware between defining potential and its realization? Is there agreed way of measuring tactical excellence and its progress over time? How thoughtfully are deadlines created and who contributes in defining them? How rigorously are lessons learnt from one project transferred to others? How well do leaders understand their accountability in achieving tactical excellence?

10. Finally, to what extent has the organization embraced the secret essence: Respect- respect their customer, respect themselves, respect relationships and respect all people?

There is enough in the book to skip, especially the prescriptive parts, where wider literature around best practices is available with more contemporary case studies.

The strength lies in reflecting on core messages, which continue to be incisive and worthy of refection