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http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/07/28/from-good-to-great-to-below-average/ http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/07/28/from-good-to-great-to...

_pius 14y ago
That article is little more than FUD and neither refutes the Hedgehog concept nor adds much value to the current discussion.
- larrys 14y ago
  How do you feel that putting a link to the Freakanomics article doesn't provide perspective on this statement: "Much of the entrepreneur blogosphere would go up in a puff of smoke if people would simply read the business books that stand the test of time." I think it does and is appropriate. I've been around long enough to have read "In search of Excellence" which Levitt refers to this way "These business books are mostly backward-looking". What the books that are backward looking don't reveal is the companies that follow the same practices that have failed. There is never any data on that.
  - _pius 14y ago
    How do you feel that putting a link to the Freakanomics article doesn't provide perspective on this statement: "Much of the entrepreneur blogosphere would go up in a puff of smoke if people would simply read the business books that stand the test of time." I think it does and is appropriate. I don't think it does. The problem of business books being mostly backward-looking is interesting, but completely orthogonal to the question of whether many lessons written about in blog posts have already been covered by classic business books.
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  So to be clear, a man writes a book purporting to identify the characteristics and behaviors that make companies great. He calls out some number of such great companies and shows how they all fit into his analysis. Said companies go on to do objectively less than great, and someone calling that out is engaging in FUD? Interesting. In my opinion Jim Collins has made a career on identifying success in hindsight, plunging headlong into a classic case of survivorship bias in order to divine the root causes of these successes, and then publishing his analysis. Can you point me to anything he has written that is predictive instead of simply retrospective? Can you actually claim that there aren't likely to be hundreds of businesses that exhibit all the traits that make businesses 'great' and yet failed?
  - _pius 14y ago
    So to be clear, a man writes a book purporting to identify the characteristics and behaviors that make companies great. He calls out some number of such great companies and shows how they all fit into his analysis. Said companies go on to do objectively less than great, and someone calling that out is engaging in FUD? Interesting. Nothing in the article actually shows that the Hedgehog concept is bad or wasn't a factor in these companies' past success. It's little more than a glib, cocktail party-sized nugget of contrarianism with no real substance. That's why I dismissed it as FUD. In my opinion Jim Collins has made a career on identifying success in hindsight, plunging headlong into a classic case of survivorship bias in order to divine the root causes of these successes, and then publishing his analysis. Can you point me to anything he has written that is predictive instead of simply retrospective? That's the whole point: it's not predictive, it's retrospective. I said the article you linked to is FUD not because I'm a Jim Collins or business book industry apologist, but because the article attacks a strawman, namely that the book claimed that companies' past success implies that they will always be successful. It'd be great if one could prove business success by induction, but it doesn't work that way. This article doesn't even attempt to address whether or not the failed companies it mentioned continued to use the concept described in the book.
    - ryanmolden 14y ago
      >Nothing in the article actually shows that the Hedgehog concept is bad or wasn't a factor in these companies' success. It's little more than a glib, cocktail-party sized nugget of contrarianism with no real substance. That's why I dismissed it as FUD. And nothing in Jim Collin's book shows it was a factor in their success, he just claims it is because all the companies he analyzed allegedly fit into his rubric. Does he research if failed companies did not fit into it equally well? Or perhaps other competitors in the same industry? If all you are doing is retrospectively identifying success, well great, but that isn't terribly hard to do. If all you are doing is cherry picking examples or worse, simply grouping already successful companies and then deciding that their success must be due to some common trait(s) they all share, then you also aren't providing any real insight in my opinion. As others have pointed out his theories are vague to the point of uselessness. Do only what you can you be 'best in the world' at? Really? Best in the world? Well by that metric there really only should be one company in every single industry, since clearly we can't have multiple 'best in the worlds'. All he is engaging in is book length common sense "Do what you are good at, don't do what you aren't good at, don't waste money on ill-conceived ideas". Trite sayings that are not really anything anyone would argue against but also don't give a lot of amazing insight. Maybe I am just too dense to get his brilliance, but I have never seen anything amazing from his writing, which was why I originally responded to someone that appeared to be implying that he was apparently the diviner of the one true path to success.
officemonkey 14y ago
Companies change. CEOs leave. For example, the thing that made Fannie Mae succeed (being able to manage risk) was abandoned with the loosening of the credit markets in 1999 and beyond. Discipline is hard and success in the past gives you a false feeling of security. Interestingly enough, this is covered in the book, but a dismissive blogosphere article isn't going to admit that.
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  Sure, but have you analysed these cases to see that is what happened or are you just saying that happened because they went on to do poorly? People have, for ages, been purporting to identify the secrets to success and sell you something that will allow you to predict the future/replicate the winners, and yet it is still rare. You could claim it is because it is hard and success breeds hubris, both of which are likely to be true, but it could also be because Jim Collins, like others before him, has not stumbled upon the secret to being great and found a way to distill it into a book or a simplistic maxim that actually works.
  - officemonkey 14y ago
    The research in the book says that Fannie Mae succeeded because they learned to manage risk better than any other company. Years of leadership by David O. Maxwell and James A. Johnson ended in 1998, and provisions of Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999. There is no simplistic maxim, but the concepts and success described in the book are backed up with far more research than either blogosphere article cited.

_pius 14y ago

That article is little more than FUD and neither refutes the Hedgehog concept nor adds much value to the current discussion.

larrys 14y ago
How do you feel that putting a link to the Freakanomics article doesn't provide perspective on this statement: "Much of the entrepreneur blogosphere would go up in a puff of smoke if people would simply read the business books that stand the test of time." I think it does and is appropriate. I've been around long enough to have read "In search of Excellence" which Levitt refers to this way "These business books are mostly backward-looking". What the books that are backward looking don't reveal is the companies that follow the same practices that have failed. There is never any data on that.
- _pius 14y ago
  How do you feel that putting a link to the Freakanomics article doesn't provide perspective on this statement: "Much of the entrepreneur blogosphere would go up in a puff of smoke if people would simply read the business books that stand the test of time." I think it does and is appropriate. I don't think it does. The problem of business books being mostly backward-looking is interesting, but completely orthogonal to the question of whether many lessons written about in blog posts have already been covered by classic business books.
ryanmolden 14y ago
So to be clear, a man writes a book purporting to identify the characteristics and behaviors that make companies great. He calls out some number of such great companies and shows how they all fit into his analysis. Said companies go on to do objectively less than great, and someone calling that out is engaging in FUD? Interesting. In my opinion Jim Collins has made a career on identifying success in hindsight, plunging headlong into a classic case of survivorship bias in order to divine the root causes of these successes, and then publishing his analysis. Can you point me to anything he has written that is predictive instead of simply retrospective? Can you actually claim that there aren't likely to be hundreds of businesses that exhibit all the traits that make businesses 'great' and yet failed?
- _pius 14y ago
  So to be clear, a man writes a book purporting to identify the characteristics and behaviors that make companies great. He calls out some number of such great companies and shows how they all fit into his analysis. Said companies go on to do objectively less than great, and someone calling that out is engaging in FUD? Interesting. Nothing in the article actually shows that the Hedgehog concept is bad or wasn't a factor in these companies' past success. It's little more than a glib, cocktail party-sized nugget of contrarianism with no real substance. That's why I dismissed it as FUD. In my opinion Jim Collins has made a career on identifying success in hindsight, plunging headlong into a classic case of survivorship bias in order to divine the root causes of these successes, and then publishing his analysis. Can you point me to anything he has written that is predictive instead of simply retrospective? That's the whole point: it's not predictive, it's retrospective. I said the article you linked to is FUD not because I'm a Jim Collins or business book industry apologist, but because the article attacks a strawman, namely that the book claimed that companies' past success implies that they will always be successful. It'd be great if one could prove business success by induction, but it doesn't work that way. This article doesn't even attempt to address whether or not the failed companies it mentioned continued to use the concept described in the book.
  - ryanmolden 14y ago
    >Nothing in the article actually shows that the Hedgehog concept is bad or wasn't a factor in these companies' success. It's little more than a glib, cocktail-party sized nugget of contrarianism with no real substance. That's why I dismissed it as FUD. And nothing in Jim Collin's book shows it was a factor in their success, he just claims it is because all the companies he analyzed allegedly fit into his rubric. Does he research if failed companies did not fit into it equally well? Or perhaps other competitors in the same industry? If all you are doing is retrospectively identifying success, well great, but that isn't terribly hard to do. If all you are doing is cherry picking examples or worse, simply grouping already successful companies and then deciding that their success must be due to some common trait(s) they all share, then you also aren't providing any real insight in my opinion. As others have pointed out his theories are vague to the point of uselessness. Do only what you can you be 'best in the world' at? Really? Best in the world? Well by that metric there really only should be one company in every single industry, since clearly we can't have multiple 'best in the worlds'. All he is engaging in is book length common sense "Do what you are good at, don't do what you aren't good at, don't waste money on ill-conceived ideas". Trite sayings that are not really anything anyone would argue against but also don't give a lot of amazing insight. Maybe I am just too dense to get his brilliance, but I have never seen anything amazing from his writing, which was why I originally responded to someone that appeared to be implying that he was apparently the diviner of the one true path to success.

officemonkey 14y ago

Companies change. CEOs leave. For example, the thing that made Fannie Mae succeed (being able to manage risk) was abandoned with the loosening of the credit markets in 1999 and beyond. Discipline is hard and success in the past gives you a false feeling of security. Interestingly enough, this is covered in the book, but a dismissive blogosphere article isn't going to admit that.

ryanmolden 14y ago
Sure, but have you analysed these cases to see that is what happened or are you just saying that happened because they went on to do poorly? People have, for ages, been purporting to identify the secrets to success and sell you something that will allow you to predict the future/replicate the winners, and yet it is still rare. You could claim it is because it is hard and success breeds hubris, both of which are likely to be true, but it could also be because Jim Collins, like others before him, has not stumbled upon the secret to being great and found a way to distill it into a book or a simplistic maxim that actually works.
- officemonkey 14y ago
  The research in the book says that Fannie Mae succeeded because they learned to manage risk better than any other company. Years of leadership by David O. Maxwell and James A. Johnson ended in 1998, and provisions of Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999. There is no simplistic maxim, but the concepts and success described in the book are backed up with far more research than either blogosphere article cited.