Category Archives: Company Building

by Charles O’Reilly and Jeffrey Pfeffer “Hidden Value” argues that the best companies win not by acquiring the right people—but by building the right organization. O’Reilly and Pfeffer warn that most companies place too much effort on attracting star performers while smart companies are doing something much more advantageous and far more difficult to copy – they’re building organizations that make it possible for ordinary people at every level of an organization to do extraordinary things. The authors provide detailed case studies

by Hermann Simon Herman Simon defines “Hidden Champions” as medium-sized, unknown companies that have quietly, under the radar, become market leaders in their respective industries. Going inside more than a thousand hidden champions around the world, Simon reveals the common patterns, behaviors, and approaches that make these secretive companies successful by resisting popular management fads, and pursuing such common-sense strategies such as focusing on core capabilities (defining a narrow market), establishing long-term relationships with customers, innovating continuously, build a strong corporate culture,

by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras “Built to Last” is one of the most influential business books of our time. Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, identified what makes visionary companies – ones that beat consistently beat their competitors, withstand changes in the marketplace, make a significant impact on the world and have outperformed the stock market by 15 times since 1926. The authors conclude that a visionary company is not contingent on one brilliant CEO, but on elements that transcend any individual

by Jim Collins In what Collins calls a prequel to the bestseller Built to Last he wrote with Jerry Porras, “Good to Great” explores how good or even mediocre companies can be turned into ones that achieve long-term superior performance. To find the keys to greatness, Collins and his team identified 11 companies that made the leap from Good To Great and discovered the characteristics of greatness—why some companies make the leap and their industry counterparts don’t. Collins introduces concepts such as