The Overcommitted Leader: You’re running hard in twelve directions, convinced that more effort equals more results. Your calendar is full, your team is busy, and yet somehow you’re standing still. This book will show you why addition is your enemy and subtraction is your salvation.
The “Good Enough” Achiever: Your company works. Your career works. Things are… fine. But “fine” is starting to feel like a life sentence. You suspect there’s a level above where you’re operating, but you can’t see the path. Collins maps it.
The Skeptical Executive: You’ve read the business books. You’ve seen the fads come and go. You want research, not opinions — data, not inspiration. This is the most rigorous study of sustained excellence ever conducted, and it will challenge assumptions you didn’t know you held.
The Founder at a Crossroads: You built something that works, but scaling feels like it’s diluting what made you special. You need a framework for growth that doesn’t require becoming a different company — just a more disciplined version of the one you already are.
You'll stop confusing motion with progress. The relentless pressure to do more, launch more, be more will start to feel like the trap it is. Collins gives you permission — backed by five years of research — to subtract, to focus, to say no to opportunities that don't fit your Hedgehog. After this book, you'll look at your overflowing to-do list differently. You'll see it not as ambition, but as a lack of clarity about what actually matters.
In an era of constant pivots and "move fast and break things" mythology, the companies that survive the next decade won't be the ones that tried everything. They'll be the ones who figured out what they could be best at and refused to get distracted. Every shiny new initiative you chase is momentum you're bleeding from the thing that could actually make you great.
This isn't one consultant's theory dressed up as universal truth. Collins and his team analyzed 1,435 companies over 40 years to find the 11 that made the leap from good to great — and sustained it. Then they studied what those companies did that their direct competitors didn't. The findings contradict almost everything business culture teaches about leadership, strategy, and success. No charismatic CEO worship. No bold strategic visions. Just disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action.
Read this before "Built to Last" if you want to understand how companies become great — then read Built to Last to understand how they stay that way across decades.
