63 pages • 2 hours read
Jim CollinsGood to Great
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapter 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Technology Accelerators”
This chapter opens with another anecdote about the power of the Hedgehog Concept, this time in connection with technology. When drugstore.com went public in 1999, it drew investors primarily because of its innovative use of technology in the pharmaceutical space. Walgreens, however, maintained its Hedgehog Concept, opting to try new technologies methodically and gradually. While drugstore.com lost most of its initial market valuation, Walgreens’s stock continued to climb. The difference between these two companies was not technology per se, or even how quickly implementation happened, but in the core approaches that Collins has dissected in the previous chapters.
This story serves to strengthen the chapter’s central argument: that technology can be an extremely effective method of accelerating momentum, but that a new technology alone will not suffice to bring a company from good to great. No matter how innovative the technology, the tool itself is simply not enough if a company has not found its Hedgehog Concept, or if it suffers from ineffective leadership or a toxic company culture. As Collins puts it, “[T]echnology is important—you can’t remain a laggard and hope to be great. But technology by itself is never a primary cause of either […] greatness or decline” (157).
Collins concludes the chapter by arguing that good-to-great companies are not motivated by the fear of being left behind, like so many mediocre companies are. Thus, innovative technologies become a natural next step for great companies, which pursue efficiency in alignment with their own Hedgehog Concepts, and not because of a fad or fear of missing out. Furthermore, according to Collins, “[A]cross eighty-four interviews with good-to-great executives, fully 80 percent didn’t even mention technology as one of the top five factors in the transformation” (163). Instead, great companies achieved greatness by acting on their own internally developed convictions.
Chapter 7 Analysis
Collins again emphasizes the importance of believing. In this case, good-to-great executives believe in their own methodology and philosophy more than the “silver bullet” solution of an innovative technological application. In the case of Walgreens versus drugstore.com, this juxtaposition becomes apparent. Cutting-edge technology was not the differentiating factor; rather, consistent belief in the company’s principles played a vital role in Walgreens’s move from good to great. Even in a rapidly changing marketplace, believing in your own convictions is fundamentally essential.
Additionally, Collins returns to the concept that the book’s guiding principles reveal universal truths. If technology is itself not a generator of momentum but an accelerator, the rest of the book holds much more power. If a Hedgehog Concept and a culture of discipline led by Level 5 leaders is more important than any technology (which may not be universally accessible), the book’s findings and prescriptions hold broader relevance.
In the closing section of the chapter, as Collins discusses the differences in motivation between mediocre and great companies, he briefly hints at a compelling theme: fear as a defining quality of mediocrity. This concept isn’t fully fleshed out, but the notion that mediocre companies stay mediocre due to their own flawed motivations could provide a qualitative (rather than simply quantitative) argument in support of Collins’s thesis. However, as Collins himself acknowledges in the opening chapter, evidence and data are key to his arguments. Proving that fear is a motivation is a difficult task, which is perhaps why Collins doesn’t include this theme elsewhere.
