The following contains excerpts from the book, From Good to Great (Jim Collins).
In our music school in Odessa, Texas, we encourage students to take a disciplined mindset towards their assessment of daily growth.
The author begins his first chapter with the familiar colloquial proverb, ‘Good is the enemy of great.’
“In our study, what we didn’t find…larger-than-life, celebrity leaders who ride in from the outside…Ten of eleven good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company…The good-to-great companies did not focus principally on what to do to become great…paid scant attention to managing change, motivating people, or creating alignment…were not, by and large, in great industries.”
At our music school in Odessa, Texas, we encourage students to grow and develop in the following ways, outlined in this book.
- A Culture of Discipline. “All companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline. When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.”
“The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline- a problem that largely goes away if you have the right people in the first place. Most companies build their bureaucratic rules to manage the small percentage of wrong people on the bus, which in turn drives away the right people on the bus, which then increases the percentage of wrong people on the bus, which increases the need for more bureaucracy to compensate for incompetence and lack of disciple…Build a culture full of people who take disciplined action within the three circles, fanatically consistent with the Hedgehog Concept.”
More precisely, this means the following:
- Build a culture around the idea of freedom and responsibility, within a framework.
- Fill that culture with self-disciplined people who are willing to go to extreme lengths to fulfill their responsibilities.
- Don’t confuse a culture of discipline with a tyrannical disciplinarian.
- Adhere with great consistency to the Hedgehog Concept, exercising an almost religious focus on the intersection of the three circles. Equally important, create a ‘stop doing list; and systematically unplug anything extraneous.
“Good to great companies built a consistent system with clear constraints, but they also gave people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system. They hired self-disciplined people who didn’t need to be managed, and then managed the system, not the people.”
“In a sense, much of this book is about creating a culture of discipline. It all starts with disciplined people. The transition begins not by trying to discipline the wrong people into the right behaviors, but by getting self-disciplined people on the bus in the first place. Next we have disciplined thought. You need the discipline to confront the brutal facts of reality, while retaining resolute faith that you can and will create a path to greatness. Most importantly, you need the discipline to persist in the search for understanding until you get your Hedgehog Concept. Finally, we have disciplined action, the primary subject of this chapter. This order is important.
One of the most important things we can cultivate in the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas is self-discipline. When a student develops this characteristic, they will ultimately win, no matter what life throws at them.
The comparison companies often tried to jump right to disciplined action. But disciplined action without self-disciplined people is impossible to sustain, and disciplined action without disciplined thought is a recipe for disaster…the point is to first get self-disciplined people who engage in very rigorous thinking, who then take disciplined action within the framework of a consistent system designed around the Hedgehog Concept…Throughout our research, we were struck by the continual use of words like disciplined, rigorous, dogged, determined, diligent, precise, fastidious, systematic, methodical, workmanlike, demanding, consistent, focused, accountable, and responsible.”
“Whereas the good-to-great companies had Level 5 leaders who built an enduring culture of discipline, the unsustained comparisons had Level 4 leaders who personally disciplined the organization through sheer force.”
“A great company is much more likely to die of indigestion from too much opportunity than starvation from too little. The challenge becomes not opportunity creation, but opportunity selection. It takes discipline to say ‘No, thank you’ to big opportunities. The fact that something is a ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’ is irrelevant if it doesn’t fit within the three circles.”
“Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding ‘to do’ lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing- and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, make as much use of ‘stop doing lists as ‘to do’ lists. They displayed a remarkable discipline to unplug all sorts of extraneous junk.”
- Technology Accelerators. “Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology. They never use technology as the primary means of igniting a transformation. Yet, paradoxically, they are pioneers in the application of carefully selected technologies.”
In our music school in Odessa, Texas, we believe in teaching students ancient principles of discipline and craft in music-making, yet with the attitude of incorporating the latest technology when it serves the purposes of the artistic goals.
“We came to see the pioneering application of technology as just one more way in which the good-to-great companies remained disciplined within the frame of their Hedgehog Concept. Conceptually, their relationship to technology is no different from their relationship to any other category of decisions: disciplined people, who engage in disciplined thought, and who then take disciplined action. If a technology doesn’t fit squarely within their three circles, they ignore all the hype and fear and just go about their business with a remarkable degree of equanimity. However, once they understand which technologies are relevant, they become fanatical and creative in the application of those technologies.”
“Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure…Indeed thoughtless reliance on technology is a liability, not an asset…without deep understanding of how it links to a clear and coherent concept- technology simply accelerates your own self-created demise.”
“Those who turn good into great are motivated by a deep creative urge and an inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for its own sake. Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity, in contrast, are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.”
We view excellence, in our music school in Odessa, Texas, not as a destination, but rather a journey. Incremental daily growth and doing the best you can with the resources at hand is how we define excellence.
“Those that stay true to these fundamentals and maintain their balance, even in times of great change and disruption, will accumulate the momentum that creates breakthrough momentum.”
We live in a time of unprecedented change, especially in the world of music and the arts. At our music school in Odessa, Texas, we believe that attaining mastery of core proficiencies will position the student for future success, no matter how history evolves.