Won for the book: the clearest map to organizational excellence.

Whether you are building a program or maintaining one, Jim Collins' book on Good to Great might be the most important book you will ever read.

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In a career shaped by the constant reading of texts on leadership, management, and military history, I believe that Good to Great offers the clearest map to organizational excellence ever committed to the page.

The book represents the culmination of a five-year study of 11 companies that exhibited 15 years of normal or below general stock market readings, then experienced a transition period, and then more than tripled their general stock market ratings over the next 15 years!

The factors that made these organizations great have a direct application to the coaching profession. What briefly follows are five points form Collins' masterwork that will help your profession vision and the growth of your program.

"GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF GREAT"

There is no push for greatness in the athletic program of many schools precisely because they are already outstanding.

I would go the author one better by charging that organizations often become comfortable with expectations of mediocrity. Many administrators will never push for greatness as long as their phone isn't ringing with complaints.

The complaints don't happen because parents of kids in the program are afraid to rock the boat or no longer care because their kids have graduated.

It is easily possible for a program to muddle along, season after season, winning a third of its games and sometimes breaking even, without arousing a community desire for something better.

In the "Type A" world of Texas football coaching, we should be willing to turn the harsh light of introspection on our programs. Everything we believe and do should be reevaluated on a yearly basis.

LEVEL FIVE LEADERSHIP

Each of the 11 GTG companies had level five leadership in place when they made the jump to greatness. Level five leaders are not the "larger than life, egocentric, celebrity leaders" (Collins).

They combine a fiercely compelling vision for the organization with personal humility. They are confident people who can make the tough decisions, but will abide by what Collins calls the "window and the mirror." That is, they focus all praise outward and take criticism on themselves. In other words, "we" were successful, but "I" failed.

Secondly, level fives are most often not the glittering saviors from outside. Dispelling one of the cherished myths of the coaching business, 10 of the 11 GTG leaders came from inside their own companies.

How often have we searched the state for the right coach when they were laboring right under our noses? Certainly, there are opportunities that are too good to pass up, but no organization that aspires to greatness can afford to overlook the development of its own people.

FIRST WHO, THEN WHAT

We often forget that all our successes are people-driven. Collins' research finds that "who" questions should be answered before "what" questions. At least one of the great companies, Hewlett Packard, was formed with no particular product in mind. Hewlett Packard put the people they wanted in place before they decided what to make.

Yet we often act as if the people who make up our staff and the people who play for us are interchangeable, like parts on an assembly line.

As for your staff, you should be a mentor who develops the potential in the people you have, and are constantly looking to harvest the best and brightest coaches in your system for positions of responsibility.

Keeping a coach who is not a fit for your program does you both a disservice.

By the same token, tailoring the strategy and the tactics of your program to the players you have is certainly a more successful approach than stuffing the players into an ill-fitting mold. We too often develop philosophies and strategies in a vacuum without thought to the people who will implement them.

HEDGEHOG CONCEPT

Collins says that the GTG companies, like the hedgehog, have one thing that they are better at than anyone else. It is their passion. Are you, your staff, and your players clear about the one thing that your program can do better than anyone else?

Many an athletic program does what it does for other reasons. It can be the new fad. It is what their coach used to run or what he has always run? If your people do not have the passionate belief that they can run something better than anyone else can, no matter how long they have been at it, it should be junked.

FLYWHEELS AND DOOM LOOPS

Football coaching can be a faddist business. Whatever is new at the pro or college level must be the best. A team in your area may have run a set or play with success for ages, but let a ranked college team start running that offense and everyone will suddenly see the merit in it.

The belief of your staff and the buy-in of your players can turn the wheel faster and faster until you achieve greatness. A close look at the programs that fail to achieve success will often reveal an endless chase after fads and fancies.

A team can earnestly believe that the right T-shirt slogan or motivational gimmick will produce success when it is their constant stopping and starting that dooms them to what Collins calls the "doom loop."

There is much more to be learned from Jim Collins's Good to Great but I hope that I have given you enough of its connections to the coaching profession to whet your appetite.

By Mark W. Malcolm, Apollo Jr. H. S., Richardson, TX