Product Description

Jim Collins Answers the Social Sector with a Monograph to Accompany Good to Great. 30-50% of those who bought Good to Great work in the Social Sector.

• This monograph is a response to questions raised by readers in the social sector. It is not a new book.
• Jim Collins wants to avoid any confusion about the monograph being a book by limiting its distribution to online retailers.
• Based on interviews and workshops with over 100 social sector leaders.
• The difference between successful organizations is not between the business and the social sector, the difference is between good organizations and great ones.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #394 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 42 pages

About the Author

Jim Collins is a student and teacher of enduring great companies -- how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies. Having invested over a decade of research into the topic, Jim has co-authored three books, including the classic Built to Last, a fixture on the Business Week bestseller list for more than five years, generating over 70 printings and translations into 16 languages. His work has been featured in Fortune, The Economist, Business Week, USA Today, Industry Week, Inc., Harvard Business Review and Fast Company.

Driven by a relentless curiosity, Jim began his research and teaching career on the faculty at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. In 1995, he founded a management laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where he now conducts multi-year research projects and works with executives from the private, public, and social sectors.

Jim has served as a teacher to senior executives and CEOs at corporations that include: Starbucks Coffee, Merck, Patagonia, American General, W.L. Gore, and hundreds more. He has also worked with the non-corporate sector such as the Leadership Network of Churches, Johns Hopkins Medical School, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and The Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Non-Profit Management.

Jim invests a significant portion of his energy in large-scale research projects -- often five or more years in duration -- to develop fundamental insights and then translate those findings into books, articles and lectures. He uses his management laboratory to work directly with executives and to develop practical tools for applying the concepts that flow from his research.

In addition, Jim is an avid rock climber and has made free ascents of the West Face of El Capitan and the East Face of Washington Column in Yosemite Valley.

Customer Reviews

Good to Great & Strategic Planning
We used the Monograph as a precursor to our strategic planning process. It was very helpful in generating a shared vocabulary for the planning process. As a companion for non-profits to the book "Good to Great," it is easy to grasp and answers many questions left open in the book. It is even a good stand-alone read for non-profit leaders, although reading both books is the best way to get the most out of the concepts. As a non-profit theater, this book is a great tool to lead us in journey towards excellence.

Good maybe not great
The book seemed to have info I need but I had trouble trying to figure out out to implement the ideas of the book into my situation.

Taking a non-profit from Good to Great
As a social entrepreneur and current business school student, I was fascinated by Collins' work in Good To Great, and I am thrilled that he has provided this monograph to answer the questions that many of us the social sector have been wrestling with since his Good To Great publication was first released.

Unlike most publications about this sector, Collins directly provides interesting insight into accountability measures for social sector organizations, as well as the characteristics and the qualities that successful managers exhibit in the social sector. As usual, his Good To Great technique of analysis has yielded him not only important take-aways for organizational management, but an intuitive sense of how organizations, both for-profit and non-profit, can truly achieve sustainability.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone who enjoyed Good To Great and has pondered its applications to the social sector. I would also highly recommend the How-to guide: Business Planning for Enduring Social Impact: A Social-Entrepreneurial Approach to Solving Social Problems by Andrew Wolk and Kelley Kreitz for anyone looking for a very clear and direct approach to putting some of Collins' idea and suggestions to practice.