The Secret of Success

Jim Collins spent six years dissecting eighteen visionary American companies, from Sony's origins as a food seller to Boeing's bet-the-company gamble on the 747, and discovered that a dollar invested in these firms in 1920 would have multiplied to six thousand by the study's end. The secret wasn't charismatic founders or revolutionary ideas: Hewlett-Packard launched planning to make bowling equipment, and Johnson & Johnson's "Our Credo" placed customers and employees above profit. What separated the visionary from the merely good was fierce loyalty to core ideology.

You'll learn:

- Why 3M's 15-percent rule breeds accidental breakthroughs

- How Wal-Mart's "Beat Yesterday" campaign replaces competitor obsession

- What General Electric's internal leadership pipeline reveals about succession