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Good is the enemy of Great - Jim Collins

In his best-selling book, Good To Great, Jim Collins researches eleven companies that he says went from good to great.  Those companies had years (or decades) of mediocre performance before suddenly outperforming the market for a generation.  He set out to uncover what set those companies apart from all the other companies that didn't make the leap. 

But what does that have to do with coaching kids??  Well, i think a lot.  Your Little League team may not have thousands of employees like a Fortune 500 company, but you still need to massage those dozen little egos.  Your soccer team may not face overseas competition, but you still have to confront the facts of what they can do - and what they can't.

Collins breaks his research into 5 "Idea Sets" that the great companies succeeded in and the good companies didn't.  He gave each a descriptive name which might not mean much without further explanation, but that's what you'll get for now…

• Level 5 Leadership
• First Who, then what
• Confront the brutal facts
• Hedgehog concept
• Building Your Company's Vision

In the book Collins makes the point several times that it doesn't take more work to be great, in fact it eventually takes less.  What I took from the book is that it takes the right work, done consistently, to be great.  Where companies — and coaches — fail is the "consistently" part.  We change direction before the greatness can blossom.

With clarity of purpose and constancy of direction, even a kids rec league team can become great at something.  They may not be the best U9 soccer team in the world — or their league — but they can become the best their talent will allow at whatever goal you set for the team — but "Beating Brazil" is probably unrealistic…

The next post will deal with Level 5 Leadership.  This is how Collins describes Level 5 leadership in the book:

Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company.  It's not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self interest.  Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious - but the ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.

How does that apply to you as a coach?  Think about your motivation for coaching, discover where you fit on the Leadership Hierarchy and what you can do to move toward the top.