Sep
19
2008
Three Things on Jim Collins’ Stop Doing List
Posted in the Category of Books and Events
Good to Great guru Jim Collins asks "Does everyone here have a To Do list?" Hundreds of Inc. 5000 entrepreneurs are assembled for his main stage presentation. All hands go up. Then he asks: "How many people in this room have a Stop Doing list?" Appreciative murmurs, but few hands.
He says he won't pose the existential question. "I will leave it up to you whether to put a Stop Doing on your To Do list."
An attendee then asks what's on his Stop Doing list. He thinks briefly and responds: His major Stop Doing this year is to get rid of layers and re-organize his company from top down management to a hub and spoke model. "I want to be in direct touch," he says.
His second Stop Doing is to stop unnecessary fire drills. By that he means responding too dramatically to emails and causing havoc amongst his staff. Now he only does email when he’s offline. He doesn’t hit Send, he hits the Save button - and sends later.
He pauses... a third Stop was one of his most important. Some years ago he decided to stop watching TV. "It made time for this glorious activity called Thinking and Reading," he crows.
Jim Collins' Top Ten To Do List
1. Go to his site and download the Good to Great diagnostic tool and do it with your team to find good areas and areas that need work.
2. How many of your key seats have the right people in them? Track as rigorously as you track your financials.
3. Really embrace getting Gen Yers in your face. Aggressively seek them out and get them to make you feel uncomfortable. (Wish he'd said more about this... didn't give us any specifics.)
4. In chapter 5 of Good to Great we talk about using a Council. Build your Council (of five to 12 people in your organization) and use it socratically.
5. Have someone start tracking your questions-to-statement ratio and try to double it next year.
6. He tells us he could work 1000 hours this next week and still not finish. What's key is taking time to think. Schedule white space days six months out, where nothing is scheduled and the only purpose of the day is to think.
7. Start your Stop Doing list.
8. Know what your values are. (Use a guide on his site, he says. Will link to when I find it.)
9. Set a 15 – 25 year BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).
10. Prepare the company to be great without you.
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Comments
Andee Sellman said on September 21, 2008 at 07:37 AM
Hi Debbie,
One of the interesting things about Jim Collins book Good to Great is that some of the companies in it have ahd a change of fortune since he wrote it.
Fannie Mae is supposedly a great compnay and Bank of America is a dud.
Funny how the fortunes of these two have turned around in the last melt down!!
Ellen Stokes said on September 21, 2008 at 10:23 AM
Hi Debbie,
After linking through to Jim Collins’ website, I found myself wondering whether updating the site was on his “Stop Doing” list! Things that were new/upcoming for 2007 such as a tv show, latest articles, etc. are still on the home page. Wish he would use the website - and a blog! - to continue to engage his many fans.
PS Do you know that if you choose to “preview” remarks here that you are returned to a blank comment page? Can’t tell if the original post went in or was deleted, so have rewritten.
Debbie Weil said on September 21, 2008 at 01:50 PM
Ellen,
Thanks much for the heads up on the problem with “preview.” Will put on the “fix it” list. Altho just tried it myself and it seemed to work - ? I’m on a mac and using firefox. You??
Debbie Weil said on September 21, 2008 at 02:06 PM
Andee,
Jim made the observation during his preso that he’s staggered at how many of the companies from Good to Great have bitten the dust, including Motorola and Fannie Mae.
Brenda Styers said on October 7, 2008 at 10:33 AM
Debbie, I see your post from 9/21/08. I was wondering if Jim has said any more about Fannie Mae as it pertains to the Good to Great principles.
