Great Business Owners Confront Brutal Facts And Instill Discipline

Last time I share two findings from the classic best-selling business book, Good To Great. Author Jim Collins and his team of researchers spent more than 15,000 hours pinpointing the factors that enable business owners to turn good companies into great companies. One of their major findings was that great companies did not have celebrity CEOs but CEOs who are self-effacing, reserved and company-focused (as opposed to being focused on themselves.) The other major finding we mentioned in the last blog post was getting the right employees in the right positions at the company before working on the right plan and strategy. So now here are two more distinguishing features that help good companies transform to greatness.   

Confronting The Brutal Facts Without Losing Faith

This portion of Collins’ research is a bit of a paradox. Good to Great says that excellent companies maintain unwavering faith that they will prevail but the companies also willing confront the brutal facts of their business reality.
To me this means always being positive, proactive and optimistic while clearly seeing the major hurdles in the way of your business and tackling those hurdles head on. It sounds to me a bit like a successful parent. A successful parent isn’t his child’s best friend. The parent treats the child with love and in a positive and optimistic way. But the successful parent also confronts the child when the child’s behavior is below standard.

How does this finding relate to your business? It says you should start with an honest and diligent effort to discover the reality of your business situation. Carefully look at your business and your market objectively. Know your weaknesses as much as your strengths. Then making the right decisions becomes easier. And you make those decisions and deliver them in a way that employees will perceive as positive, proactive and optimistic.

A Culture of Discipline
The Collins book also says that while all companies have a culture, very few have a culture of discipline. Collins means that when you have disciplined people you don’t need hierarchy. People in your company naturally work hard and work smart.

We adapt to our surroundings, don’t we? If we join a company where it’s common to work as a team and put the company’s goals above any one department’s goals then we will tend to do the same. When you build a culture of discipline in your company everyone learns to be disciplined—to take responsibility, not make excuses, do what they say they will do and spread that culture to others.

Doesn’t this relate to the Good to Great research finding about making sure you have the right people in your company (see my previous post)? Having the right people on board frees you from having to review the work of others. You build trust. You and your team tend to be on the same page. And your team works hard not for money or other selfish reasons but because they sincerely want your company to succeed. That sounds like a culture of discipline to me.

In a future post we’ll explore some of these factors of business greatness in greater depth. But let me know now what you think. What rings true to you in this post? What do you question? Send me your response. Visit my website and blog. Or call me at 203.453.1017.