| |  | Author: James C. Collins
Publisher: Harperbusiness
Category: Book
Buy Used: $26.99
Used (3) from $26.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  705 reviews
Sales Rank: 1816352
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
ISBN: 0066621003
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9780066621005
ASIN: 0066621003
Publication Date: September 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Worth for its price September 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I don't need much to write here as hundreds of people has written review for this book.
In simple terms the book is easy to read & understand. Analyze how best companies manage to retain their position by innovative & intelligent leadership. Research is sound & findings are really interesting. This book would be useful for any leader (or follower) even if they are not into financial sector.
The concept of "Good is the enemy of Great" struck me the most
Definitely worth for its price.
 Mediocre at best September 19, 2008
After many years of ignoring the hype about this book (it admittedly has a great name) I buckled and read it. It was o.k. I did find some useful facts and anecdotes in it but for the most part it reminded me of esoteric research papers that I was forced to read in med school and residency -- crammed with #'s and statistics and graphs, but relatively little in the way of real-life applicable insights. Worth a quick perusal. The books by Trout and Ries are much better.
 Master bamboozler September 12, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I did not finish this book. Many may argue reviewers should not review books that they have not read entirely, but I think it would ultimately benefit potential readers if even those who started books reviewed them. Maybe then Amazon book reviews would not be so skewed to 5-star reviews. Now on to why I did not like this book.
As a former management consultant, I appreciated the techniques the author used to make what he was saying sound important such as using fancy charts and graphs and writing in business lingo with little substance. The author also sets the stage by self-aggrandizing. In the first page he ruminates about how much someone would have to pay him in order not to publish the book. Apparently even 100 million dollars would not stop him from publishing his work. Now if this were a truly amazing book and research, why not let the readers decide instead of telling them how great it is going to be? Mr. Collins is smart, however. He knows self-aggrandizing works. Human beings fall for those pretensions all the time. Sales people use those strategies all the time. I don't believe that the author is trying to deceive readers and I am sure he genuinely believes his own material. "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." (quote by physicist, Richard Phillips Feynman).
Collins looks at 11 companies that have achieved success and tries to explain what drove them to that success. This is a meaningless exercise. Every situation is unique and more importantly it has little application to the real world. If it did, then why hasn't he been able to predict the future successful companies and become rich by investing in them? If you are not convinced by my review, consider this: one of those "good to great" companies that is studied in the book is Fannie Mae. Enough said!
Good to great to horrible September 8, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Fannie Mae was featured in the book Good To Great about 4 years ago. At the time the stock was trading at $70+. Seems like it went from good to great to horrible. Time for a new book.
Good to Great September 8, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the best books on business ever written. Very easy to read and even easier to put into action.
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