Good to Great

Some of you may have read Jim Collins' book, "Good to Great." Jim was in town last week to speak at, or should I say talk VERY passionately at, our annual partner's meeting. Jim has agreed to begin working more closely with our firm (Edward Jones) and he offered many challenges to consider as we grow over the next 25 years. However, as Jim stated principles for transforming our business from Good to Great, I found myself thinking about how an individual does the same in the athletic arena.

Here are some of Jim's comments. See if they conjure up similar athletic thoughts for you. Please keep in mind 'great' or 'greatness' is a relative term. Please understand, I'm not suggesting that I am a great bike racer by any means, but I do aspire to 'get better.'

1. Building greatness is a cumulative process. It's organic. There are no quick fixes. There is virtually no point in time when you can say "that's when greatness broke through."

2. A key psychology for moving from good to great is the Stockdale Paradox (so named after Admiral Stockdale and his beliefs during captivity in a prisoner of war camp): Retain absolute faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of difficulties AND at the same time confront the brutal facts of your current reality.

3. No matter how dramatic the end result, good to great transformation never happened in one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment.

4. Sustainable transformations follow a predictable pattern of build-up and breakthrough. Like pushing a giant flywheel, it takes a lot of effort to get it moving at all. But with persistent pushing in a constant direction over a long period of time, the flywheel builds momentum, eventually hitting a period of breakthrough.

5. Good is the enemy of great.

6. Greatness is a function of choice and discipline.

7. The moment you think of yourself as great, you're not.