Is Greatness Overrated?

Selling Greatness

It’s been 12 years since author Jim Collins published his best-selling business book, Good To Great.  The book became a must-read for top level leaders around the world.  And, laggards are still inspired by the book’s opening:

“Good is the enemy of great”.

The Challenge in Sustaining Greatness

In the words of former IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson:

“Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.”

Complacency that comes from a feeling of attainment is an obstacle to both maintaining performance and seeking higher aspirations.  One of the 11 Good To Great companies (Circuit City) is out of business. Others have struggled to sustain their documented greatness. If you look at the original Fortune 500 list (1955), only 71 companies sustained that status. Is big is the enemy of great, also?

Your Brand Promise: Good or Great?

At the end of the day, the quarter, the year or the decade, success is best measured by a company’s ability to get and keep customers.  When you promise them greatness, they need to believe that promise; both now and in the future.When you raise your customers’ expectations to a level that can’t be met and sustained, you lose their trust, loyalty and their business.  So as you get caught up in the noble aspiration and daunting tasks related to being the best you can be, you need to avoid writing greatness checks that your organization can’t cash.To help avoid the scenario of non-sufficient customer trust.

True or False Greatness Quiz

Answer True or False

1. Good is the enemy of great.
2. Size is an obstacle to sustained greatness.
3. Keeping your Brand Promise involves maintaining the relevance of your current and future greatness in the minds of your customers.
4. Better to under promise and over deliver than the reverse.

If you answered true to the all of the above, you passed. That’s good. But is it great? Likely not. But if you can consistently apply these concepts, you’re less likely to derail your pursuit of greatness.Sustaining business greatness goes beyond simply being better than good. It’s a delicate balance of both raising the bar and managing expectations.

Related Articles

• Good is the Enemy of Great:  Why is it so easy to settle for good?
• Pursuit of Good To Great Leadership
• Strategic Pursuit of Greatness – Step 1
• Filling the Bus for your “Good to Great” Odyssey
• From Good To Great To Gone
• Is Good the Enemy of Great? Or The Reverse?