Why be great?

I attended a business forum a few months ago at which a panel was sharing their recommendations on good business books. One of the panelists made an observation with which I readily agree. He said that many of the great business books he'd read simply organize and articulate what we know from our own experience to be true.

I have just finished reading Jim Collins' book, Good to Great. I would classify this as one of the truly outstanding books on the science and art of business management, not just because of the truths that it presents, but because of the way it is presented. The observations are not simply the author's personal opinions, but the result of a five-year research study that identifies the factors that allow a company to make the transition from being a "good" company, to being a "great" company.

At the book's conclusion, Collins relates a story about a former student asking him "why be great? what's wrong with just being successful?" His response was as insightful as the rest of the book, and though not supported by research, is again something that I know to be true. He said that it is just as easy to be great as it is to be good, and that in fact in most cases it's easier and a lot more fun to be great.

How true, and how hard it is to convince people of this fact.

I recall that when I was a practicing software developer, I continuously tried, through my writing, my speaking and my leadership of other programmers, to convince them that good coding and adherence to principles of good design and other "best practices" made life so much easier. I knew this, because I had learned the hard way the price to be paid from sloppy coding, and quick-and-dirty application construction.

It seemed that some of the programmers I worked with "got it", and my efforts were, like a good business book, a way of helping them to more clearly see what they knew to be better way of doing things. The vast majority, however, persisted in taking what they thought to be "short cuts", and pursued a less rigorous, and (in their minds) "easier" way of doing things. No amount of persuasion on my part would ever convince them of the wisdom of trying to step up to a higher level of professionalism in their craft.

The truth, I finally realized, is that most people just don't give a damn. Their job is just their job, and don't try to make them see it as a profession or a career.

I think this is true in the case of business practices. Most people are in business by default - it's just where they ended up. They have no particular love for business - no passion, no thrill. These folks would no more bother to read a book on business practices than they'd fly without benefit of aircraft. Even if they did, their reaction would be "so what?" and never internalize anything they may have read.

Which brings me to the first principle in Jim Collins' book. In transforming a business from "good" to "great", the first order of business is to get (as he puts it) the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the people that are on the bus into the right seats. Even though he suggests that any company can make this transition, the brutal truth is that only about 10% of people in business have any passion for being great. Collins also points out that motivation of the "wrong" people is a fools errand, and a poor use of energy and effort, so you basically have what you have.

If your company can get itself staffed by people from that 10%, you can let your competitors have the dregs, and you'll kick butt.