My obsession with learning how to build great and enduring organizations started over three decades ago when I got my first job. My dad gave me a job in his mattress factory so that I could buy myself some new hockey equipment. I wanted the good stuff and he thought I should earn it. He was right.
I was put to work in the shipping department and my role was to put the mattresses into a plastic bag and then place them on a skid to be loaded onto a truck. I was twelve.
It turns out that my job of bagging mattresses was the single biggest bottleneck in the factory. Mattresses were piled to the ceiling when I arrived for work on my first day. It had been this way ever since my dad acquired the business. Within 2 hours of starting my first shift, I had cleared the line and removed the bottleneck.
Working in a factory gave me lots of time to think. The first question I remember pondering was, “how is it that a 12 year boy with zero work experience could fix something in two hours that grown men had allowed to persist for years?”
I continued working in my dad’s factory on weekends and summers while I was a student. My addiction to expensive sports equipment kept growing and this was how I paid for my gear.
Over the years, my thoughts expanded from what makes individuals great, to what makes organizations great. For example, when I was in high school my dad asked me to implement a quality system for him. My dad owned the Serta franchise for Ontario and we were among the bottom 25% of all Serta factories in terms of quality. Six months later, we had improved to the top 25% and I had helped our factory consistently deliver one of the best quality mattresses in the world. My new burning question, “what differentiates mediocre organizations from those that are truly great?”
The answer came a few years later when Jim Collins released his legendary book Good to Great. I was in my early twenties when I first read Good to Great - and I loved it. The concepts in this book - along with those in Jim’s books Great by Choice and Built to last have made a profound impact on my life.
Until recently, I had thought of these as related but separate pieces of work. And then I found The Map.
Available for free on Jim Collins’s website, The Map, shows you the key components of building a great and enduring organization. It also shows you how the concepts are linked together. I highly recommend watching the 22 minute video that walks you through each component of The Map (link below). There is a lot of wisdom within it.
Whatever type of organization you want to make great (whether it is a business in any industry or a nonprofit organization in the social sectors) and for any purpose (to make money, to make impact, or both), The Map by Jim Collins shows you the way and helps you stay focused during the long journey of building a great enduring organization.
Going back to my youth working in my dad’s factory… there was nothing special about me in terms of my skill or experience that enabled me to make an impact. I didn’t even understand at the time that what I was doing was so important. So what was it that enabled a twelve year old to remove a persistent bottleneck and a high school kid to successfully implement a quality system? The answer is found in the following quote from Jim Collins… “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”
I genuinely hope that you will choose to be great. That you will look for others in your organization that want to be great. They can be found at a leadership level, on the front lines, and everywhere in between. If you’d like my help with with building a great and enduring organization that makes the world better, then please reach out to me. I can’t make the choice for you, but once you do, there is a world of opportunity that awaits you, your organization, and everyone your organization serves.
The Map found on Jim Collin's website ties together the timeless concepts that emerged from more than 25 years of rigorous research into the question of what makes great companies tick (https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts.html).
About EOS
EOS is a simple, complete and proven system for running a truly great organization. As an EOS Implementer, I help my clients create organizational alignment, execute with accountability and discipline, and work together as a healthy team.