Good to Great and the Social Sectors

Have you picked up the supplement to Good to Great yet? I know, it doesn’t seem like you should have to pay $8.96 for a 36-page booklet. In this case, though, I strongly recommend you bite the bullet and scurry over to Amazon to order the Good to Great and the Social Sectors "monograph" Jim Collins has created. While you’re there, make sure you also order the original Good to Great book if you haven’t read that already. The monograph really won’t make sense unless you’ve read the book…which also happens to be one of my favorites of all time.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the new monograph:

• "To throw our hands up and say, ‘But we cannot measure performance in the social sectors the way you can in a business’ is simply lack of discipline."
• "Level 5 leaders differ from Level 4 leaders in that they are ambitious first and foremost for the cause, the movement, the mission, the work–not themselves–and they have the will to do whatever it takes (whatever it takes) to make good on that ambition."
• "…do whatever you can to get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people into the right seats."
• "You must be able to answer the question, "How does focusing on what we can do best tie directly to our resource engine, and how does our resource engine directly reinforce what we can do best?’"
• "Restricted giving misses a fundamental point: to make the greatest impact on society requires first and foremost a great organization, not a single great program…the best thing supporters can do is to give resources that enable the institution’s leaders to do their work the best way they know how.

And pay particular attention to this last one: "Social sector leaders pride themselves on "doing good" for the world, but to be of maximum service requires a ferocious focus on doing good only if it fits with your Hedgehog Concept [what you're passionate about, best in the world at, and what drives your resource engine]. To do the most good requires saying "no" to pressures to stray, and the discipline to stop doing what does not fit."