4 more days till I head back to Sydney, I just realised how hard it is for me to not have some entertainment running in the background because I fear what it would be like to have no "noise" around me and be alone.

Well anyway it was a good thing to notice and now without any noise I try to write down my thoughts about the past few months.

First thing learnt, family holidays must be to non-stressful locations with simple things to do that everyone can do and I will not be left out due to muscle problems.

Second thing learnt, how to work in a bank.

Third thing learnt, cannot spend too much time gaming.

Well amongst other things...

This would be as good a time as any to state down new year's resolutions (just in time for chinese new year):

1. Lose weight (DIE DIE)
2. Learn proper public speaking technique
3. Incorporate mind mapping and speed reading into study method
4. Spend more time making/and with friends
5. Spend more time with my guitar (grr I really want to bring it back on this trip..... heck I'm just gonna do it)

This study was stimulated by Mr. Bill Meehan's (head of McKinsey in San Francisco) observation that Built to Last wasn't very helpful to companies, because the firms studied had always been great. Most companies have been good, and never great. What should these firms do?
Jim Collins and his team have done an enormous amount of interesting work to determine whether a good company can be come a great company, and how. The answer to the former question is "yes," assuming that the 11 of 1435 Fortune 500 companies did not make it there by accident. The answer to the latter is less clear. The study group identified a number of characteristics that their 11 companies had in common, which were much less frequently present in comparison companies. However, the study inexplicably fails to look at these same characteristics to see how often they succeed in the general population of companies. If these characteristics work 100 percent of the time, you really have something. If they work 5 percent of the time, then not too much is proven.
How were the 11 study companies selected? The criteria take pages to explain in an appendix. Let me simplify by saying that their stock price growth had to be in a range from somewhat lower than to not much higher than the market averages for 15 years. Then, in the next 15 years the stocks had to soar versus the market averages and comparison companies while remaining independent. That's hard to do. The selected companies are Abbott Laboratories, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreen, and Wells Fargo.
As to the "how," attention was focused on what happened before and during the transition from average performance to high performance. Interviews, quantitative analyses, and business press reports were studied. Clearly, there's a tendency to see things a little bit with 20-20 hindsight in such a situation. Since this study started in 1996, it was dealing with facts that were already quite old while they were being examined. Bias is likely.
The key conclusions as to "how" included the following:
(1) a series of CEOs (promoted from within) who combined "personal humility and professional will" focused on making a great company;
(2) an initial focus on eliminating weak people, adding top performing ones, and establishing a culture of top talent putting out extraordinary effort;
(3) then shifting attention to staring at and thinking unceasingly about the hardest facts about the company's situation;
(4) using facts to develop a simple concept that is iteratively reconsidered to focus action on improving performance;
(5) establishing and maintaining a corporate culture of discipline built around commitments, with freedom about how to meet those promises;
(6) using technology to accelerate progress when it fits the company's concept of what it wants to become; and
(7) the company builds momentum from consistent efforts behind its concept that are reinforced by success.
Then, a connection is made to how these 7 conditions can provide the foundation for establishing a Built to Last type of company that can outperform the competition over many decades.
One potential criticism of the study is that its conclusions could be dated. Former Stanford professor Collins argues that he has uncovered basic facts about human organizations that will be unchanging.
I compared the conclusions in this book with my own studies of top performing CEOs and companies in the 1988-2001 time period. I noticed two major differences that suggest a shift in "best practice" standards. First, those who outperform now have developed processes that create major improvements in their operating business models every 2-5 years. Second, senior management development is focused around improving a culture for defining and implementing such improvements. I suspect that item (4) above was an embryonic predecessor to these new dimensions, which occur much more frequently now than in this study.
Next, I compared the list of 7 items to what I had observed in companies. The biggest point that hit me is how few CEOs have been interested in creating long-term outperformance that lasts past their own tenure in an industry. You also have to be a CEO for a long time with that focus before you have a chance to make a lasting impact. Founders have a special advantage here. Perpetuating outperformance may help fill a psychological need for immortality that fits with founders especially well.
Finally, I thought about what I knew about the companies studied from personal contacts during the study years. My sense is that their stories are far more complex than is captured here. So, I think the data have probably been "scrunched" to fit together in some cases. In particular, I wonder whether these companies will greatly outperform in the next 15 years. In many cases, they expanded to meet an unfilled need that is now largely fulfilled. Can they develop a new concept for (4) that will carry them forward as successfully in the future? My guess is that most will not. If that turns out to be the case, we must conclude that the items on this list may be necessary . . . but may not be sufficient to go permanently from good to great. Time will tell.
Before closing, let me observe that if the research team had also looked at the rate by which their principles succeeded among companies that employed them, this would have been one of the very finest research studies on best practices that I have seen. A book like this will provoke much discussion and thought for years to come. Perhaps that information can be included in a future edition or printing. Then, we will have something magnificent to consider!
Do you want to be the best permanently? Why? Or, why not? Mr. Collins points out that it probably takes no more effort, but a lot more discipline and focus.
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232 of 272 people found the following review helpful: Good to Great....., May 28, 2003
Reviewer:
louis caputo (NJ, USA) - See all my reviewsWhy do some companies have continuing, sustained growth in excess of those companies around them? What is it that makes them different? Is it charismatic leadership? Right place, right time? Unique product?
This is the question that Jim Collins attempts to answer in Good to Great.
He and a team of 20 researchers spent five years and more than 15,000 manhours researching the question, Why Some Companies Make the Leap, Good to Great...and Others Don't.
They reviewed thousands of books, articles, and annual reports; conducted financial analyses on records that totaled 980 years of combined business records. They interviewed 84 senior executives and board members, scrutinized the personal and professional records of 56 of the CEO's, and researched the executive compensation plans.
They analyzed the patterns in layoffs, how media exposure affected the financial results, and finally, how technology was used and it's effect, if any on the financial performance of the companies. The team researched every aspect that could be quantified, codified, analyzed or compared.
The study begins with 1,435 Fortune 500 companies and narrows the list down to 11 that made the transition from good-to-great companies.
These are companies that stand out as being different from their direct competition.This book shows you objectively what it was that made these companies financial returns 3,4, to 18 times better than stock market averages for 15 years. And, it tells youhow to apply these findings to your business.
Level 5 Leadership: Moving from good to great starts with leadership, with the will and drive to succeed. Not on a personal level, but for the company to succeed.
First Who...Then What: Next find the right people to manage and run the business.
Control the Brutal Facts: Then look at the facts objectively. What are your core competencies?
Hedgehog Concept: Then take action based on being the best at what you can be the best at.
Culture of Discipline: Implement the resulting plan rigorously, with discipline and focus.
Good to Great is a textbook on how to run a successful organization. It includes extensive appendices detailing the methodologies of the research and comphrehensive notes and references.
Good to Great is a must-read for anyone building or leading a business or group. And it challenges a lot of the current hypeabout makes a company successful. Whether it be the charismatic CEO, to the hype of IT, or merger mania, none of these contributed to the success of the top 11 companies covered in Good-to-Great.
At 300 pages, Good-to-Great is a comphrehensive research project, well written and entertaining too. If you enjoyed Built to Last, you will love Good-to-Great.

In Search of Excellence - the eight themes
A bias for action, active decision making - 'getting on with it'.
Close to the customer - learning from the people served by the business.
Autonomy and entrepreneurship - fostering innovation and nurturing 'champions'.
Productivity through people - treating rank and file employees as a source of quality.
Hands-on, value-driven - management philosophy that guides everyday practice - management showing its commitment.
Stick to the knitting - stay with the business that you know.
Simple form, lean staff - some of the best companies have minimal HQ staff.
Simultaneous loose-tight properties - autonomy in shop-floor activities plus centralised values.

This is how a person should think before reading anything.

Purple Cow is probably the most overrated business book published in 2003.
Let me save you money and time. Read the summary below rather than buying and reading this book:
Marketing should begin with a differentiated product or service that gets attention (like a purple cow does among a field of brown ones). Be sure that those who care deeply about that differentiation learn about your product or service (as Krispy Kreme does by providing free donuts when it opens a new store). Those who care will e-mail and tell everyone they know (the ideavirus concept Mr. Godin has written about before). Keep adding new differentiated enhancements to your product or service (pretty soon you don't find a purple cow so interesting). Start looking for totally new business models that provide a breakthrough like your first purple cow did. Don't waste your time and money on advertising. Alternatively, it's dangerous not to do this because your product or service will be lost among all of the other brown cows (undifferentiated offerings).
I congratulate Mr. Godin on his marketing skill. Turning these few old saws with a few new examples into a best seller is outstanding marketing. Otherwise, I would grade this book as a one star effort. It will only be of value to those who have never read anything about the power of business model innovation. To learn how to do successful business model innovation, you will have to look elsewhere. I was particularly disappointed that he relied on examples that are so old. Starbucks, HBO and Krispy Kreme, for instance, haven't done a business model innovation in years. Only the JetBlue example is recent. Yet the world is full of new examples he could have talked about.
Actually, the book's key metaphor is flawed. While a purple cow (like the title and cover of this book) will certainly get your attention (and may get you to spend a few dollars to investigate it), is there really anyone out there who wants an actual purple cow because it provides any value other than uniqueness? The example reminds me of the old-time professional wrestler, Gorgeous George, who always wore purple and used that color in everything he owned (including his car and turkeys on his ranch near Yucaipa, California). Yes, the purple attracted your attention . . . but unless you liked his wrestling, that one glance was the end of it. I remember driving to his ranch to see a purple turkey, but never went back. Actually, the charity cows that are painted and decorated by different artists and then auctioned off in different cities would have made a better metaphor for this book.
Like much of what pretends to be new and different in business books today, this book is simply dressed up on modern clothes and new terms. I suggest you read Strategy Maps, the Innovator's Solution and Corporate Creativity if you want to learn how create these changes successfully in a company.


As I finished the book, I began to realize that much of what is wrong with business gurus today is that they love to tell their own ideas . . . but are seldom willing to do the hard work necessary to locate and measure how to do what they espouse. It made me realize that I should always "walk my talk to teaching people how to do what I encourage them to do."

You know what's fun about interning? It gives you a few hours here and there where you have nothing to do but do stuff you ought to do at home but you rather not because of TV and msn.

I heard this on the radio the same day I developed a crush recently.

Why does a person avoid speaking to a crush?

1. To ensure he/she doesn't say something stupid that affects their relationship with their crush

True.

How about, ensuring he/she doesn't cause people to fall because of his/her desires.

Oso True.

I'd like to just clear my head, here I can do it without politica

So I've started going for Jon Ong's cell and started helping out again in Dean's cell.

Why do I go for Jon's? Perhaps to spend more time with my buddy Chang and hang out with Jon.

Why Dean's? I like to make things better, the more problems there are to fix the happier I am to do it.

All the thoughts that were running through my head are gone now, I must have managed to list them down quite articulately.

I havn't found a cell that I can really "grow" in, is it really a problem to me? Not really, until I find a cell for type A driven nutcases who want to change the world, I'm probably better off just keeping my thoughts to myself.

I realise that I actually have pretty low self esteem sometimes so in the comfort of my blog I'm going to say. I'm smart, talented and COOL!

I've been reading a webcomic called Planet Karen and it's motivated me to continue blogging, in fact it would be fun to draw my diary like she does! I shall try one day.

So how was investment banking? To the boos and foos of Douglas the former IBD (Cool right their name), I only stayed for a day and a half and didn't stay late so I didn't get the official lifestyle and thus suck. But I got a clear idea, IBD people basically have no life, do very interesting work, some what tedious work, are mostly type A personalities, all are smarty, all are cool, all are the elite of the bank. And they're proud of their no life-ness. Can I do 9am to 12 midnight on a daily basis? Then start making millions? :D Maybe...

Oh and Chittybank's hours have been reduced to 830 - 530 daily. Zhen de mah? Bu zhi dao. Probably not...yup, apparently people in treasury do not follow the clock. Bastards.

I sat down to do another 29.95 career guide so I could get more ideas of how I could find my dream job. The sad part was that it told me that my second best career choice would be funeral services, I'm a tad sad.

So occupational interests:

High on

- Admin
- Health Services
- Personal Service
- Teaching/ Social Service
- Outdoors
- Sales

Work Styles:

- Assertive
- Persuasive
- Low on systematic
So it is true that I enjoy the admin side of a job where I supervise and plan work schedules on a day to day basis. I also enjoy influencing, advising, counseling, guiding, motivating and directing the activities of others and I am interested in the health of individuals.

So people who choose a career or course that matches their interests are more confident, happier and achieve greater success. Yey.

And I think I know how to incorporate all of them into one career.

The starting point would be to finish this finance degree well, then get into Med school, preferably from the US, then get trained in my preferred area which I believe to be psychiatry.

I guess I don't have to get into med school, perhaps back into psych school. But being able to diagnose sicknesses is cool too.

So I think I need a job which allows me to have a certain type of work/life balance and enough money to play with.

Oh and no clerical work.

So to add on to the diagnosis of self, I need to think about my personality, values, knowledge, skills and abilities.

Personality? Closer to type A than to B, only likes being around people who are like him, value humility, intelligence, kindness, concern for others.

Knowledge? Finance, accounting, admin, psychology and many lessons from the school of hard knocks.

Skills? Big picture understanding, solution creation, leading, listening

Abilities?

Work place fit profile:
- Social (Helpers), Enterprising (Persuaders), Attentive (Servers), Investigative (Thinkers), Artistic (Creators.

Help others, have adventurous business career, assert my ideas, show leadership, sociability, politeness, patience and a happy disposition. Problem solving in mathematics, technology, sciences, abstract and practical ideas. Expression of ideas either through discussion or debate.