Good to Great is, in short, a study of why some companies become megastars in the business world and why other ones seem to fall by the wayside. I use the term “study” because this book really is nothing more than the discussion around a set of findings from an actual academic study into a variety of companies – both those that made the jump to being “great” and those who either stayed in the middle of the industry or failed.

In a moment, I’ll write about some issues that I have with the companies that were used in the study, but it would only be proper to state how impressed I was with the findings of the study. Collins defines his results as: Level 5 Leadership, First Who…Then What, Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith), The Hedgehog Concept, A Culture of Discipline, Technology Accelerators, and The Flywheel and the Doom Loop. In fact, if you read just the table of contents for Good to Great, you’ll notice that this is their exact listing. The two findings that I enjoyed reading the most were Level 5 Leadership and Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith).

As a reader who is engaged in reality (and thus I apply real-world experiences to what I read), I liked reading about Level 5 Leadership for both selfish and professional reasons. Professionally, it is amazing how many people that I have worked for who are not the type of leaders that my companies have needed to exceed. I’ve worked for people who didn’t know a thing about leadership, yet managed to become the President or Executive Director of the company. It’s sickening, really. What makes someone a Level 5 Leader? As Collins suggested, it’s the unique combination of professional will and personal humility. In other words, you have to always have the best interests of the organization in mind, yet be able to be self-effacing about your success; always put the company’s success before your own.

How many people can honestly say that they’ve worked for people who acted that way about their company’s success? Few, I’m sure. Better yet, how many people have worked for bosses that considered the company’s success as a direct result of their own contributions? Much more, I’m sure.

The other finding of this study that I liked was the Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith) chapter. From my experience, this is something that far too few companies are comfortable with doing – and who can blame them. Who really wants to sit down as a company and look into the proverbial mirror? That’s a tough task and one that many companies cannot accomplish because their leadership is either too concerned about their professional reputation or they refuse to see any flaws that their leadership could have created.

I also like how Collins adds a summary to the end of each chapter showing the findings and the unintended findings. A very nice touch.

Now then… I have a problem with this companies in this book being heralded as “great.” Why, you ask? Two answers – Circuit City and Fannie Mae. Both of these companies are defined as “great” in the study, which shows one of the obvious flaws of the study – namely, that the confines of the research did not take into account whether or not the results that were being generated were built on a legit financial system. In other words, did Circuit City beat the pants off of the rest of the electronics stores because it truly had a better overall corporate structure? I think recent history would suggest the answers is a resounding no.

The same can be said of Fannie Mae. Here’s an organization that some suggest was implicit in the housing bust that literally wrecked the American and global economies. How can these companies be considered great in the long run if they were such miserable failures?

On the other hand, Wells Fargo is touted as a “great” company (and rightfully so), but it is contrasted with the Bank of America as a company that never made the leap to “great.” Well, having worked with the Bank of America (not as an employee, but as a business partner), I can tell you that they are a great organization. Sure, they may not have fit Collins’ definition during the period of the study, but rest assured that Bank of America is a great financial institution. For those of you who are naysayers due to its current bailout from the federal government, I get it. However, the Bank of America is one of the few financial firms that wants to repay the TARP funds ASAP.

All in all, I though Collins book was very well written and that the findings of the study were accessible. I would also argue that the findings are applicable to the business world despite my last few paragraphs. However, I would argue that the public can have a legit complaint about Fannie Mae and Circuit City being heralded as “great.” If you can get your hands on a copy of Good to Great, I recommend reading it.

Of all the reports that struck me, the one that made me go wide-eyed the most was the one of the woman from CNN who claimed that she was being harassed at the tea party which was anti-tax and, “anti-CNN.” Anti-CNN? Really? If you watch the video, you’ll notice that this woman was being rude and arrogant to the people in the crowd – not letting them finish answers to her questions and cutting them off. Frankly, she was being an all-around asshole. The term “self-important bitch” comes to mind when I watch the video. And for those of you who suggest that she had every right to berate the guy with the anti-Obama sign remember two things. First, she’s a journalist and what she believes is best saved for an op-ed, not a news report. Second, this same woman attended a parade a few years ago held by those on the far left of the political spectrum and laughed and condoned an image of President George W. Bush as Adolf Hitler.

Fair and balanced? Definitely not so on CNN.

As she was saying this I couldn’t help but think of that episode of Family Guy where Peter secedes from the union and founds the country of Petoria. At one point during the episode, Tom Tucker is reporting live from the scene and starts saying how bad it was and how it was a full-out war between the United States and Petoria…then the camera pans towards him and you see him making the gunfire noises with plastic bubble paper and rocket noises with a slide whistle! It seems that the fictional Tom Tucker and the real world “reporter” from CNN went to the same journalism school!

Anyway, the Constitution Party came out with an e-mail to those on its e-mail list saying the following:

We suggest you now send your emails to CNN Executive Vice President Ken Jautz : ken.jautz@cnn.com and Philip Kent, the Chairman and CEO of CNN: phil.kent@turner.com

Let Susan’s boss know you’re not going to let off the hook a left-wing activist with a mic who was denouncing a legitimate and honest political movement by hard working Americans. Remind the CNN honchos that there were close to one million attendees at the tea parties.

Now, I normally don’t go putting up these types of e-mails on this blog, but I think that this particular message has some resounding value. It’s really ridiculous that CNN would put such a biased, arrogant report on the air. I was one of the many people who moved away from FOX News’ coverage of the Presidential campaign and over to CNN because they just had better coverage this year. However, now that I see such blatant bias, I really can’t stick with CNN as my “flip to” channel. It’s back to FOX News for me – where, believe it or not, they are much more “fair and balanced” than the dummies at CNN.

Ms. Boyle appeared on Britain’s Got Talent, more specifically the episode that aired last weekend. And the reason why it’s important to note that she appeared on last weekend’s episode is because of how big of a phenomenon she’s become since then. As of this writing, the video of her on YouTube has garnered 29.9 million hits. In a week! Ms. Boyle is an internet sensation if there ever was one and she’s probably the most deserving one in history.

What is remarkable about Ms. Boyle is that the judges on Britain’s Got Talent (of which Simon Cowell is one) immediately wrote her off as a bland, hopelessly untalented wannabe. And the crowd in the theater was no better. They immediately fell back on to the sad innate biases of the 21st Century – that a 47-year-old, homely, somewhat frumpy looking virgin charity worker had nothing of significance to offer the world and thus, let’s laugh at her. In fact, if you watch the video linked above, you’ll hear that people are laughing at Ms. Boyle just as she stands on the stage. It’s ridiculous.

But the laughter immediately changes to adoration a few seconds into Ms. Boyle’s rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables. It’s stunning. It’s the type of real world reaction that the entertainment types cannot recreate and that no money can buy. And the humiliation embodied by the judges after Ms. Boyle’s amazing performance shows that there is at least some large degree of remorse that comes along with judging a book by its cover.

So, during a time when the global population is concerned about local, regional, and the worldwide economies and at a time when we’re not sure what the next day holds, it’s good to know that a person like Susan Boyle can become not just an internet sensation, but the hope of a generation. Like the rest of the world, America – and New Jersey – is pulling for Ms. Boyle to win this season of Britian’s Got Talent. Good luck!

First, there is only one fat person on the entire show and he plays a bit part as a security guard. I can’t imagine that in this fictional society there are no overweight people besides a security guard. Very awkward. In the real world, more than half of Americans are overweight and a large number of the population is considered obese. Of course, I guess that this is one of the reasons that the show takes place in a fictional land!

Second, the show is a bit eerie in that everyone sort of looks alike. Not that they all have the same hair color and eye color, but I think the casting folks went a bit overboard on the “model” look. Everyone from the King all the way down to rank and file soldiers in the Gilboa army all could double as models for Calvin Klein, Old Navy, Gap, etc. It’s weird. The characters don’t have any blemishes, no scars, no deviations from the “perfect” look that models are always trying to achieve. Frankly, it creeps me out.

And finally, this isn’t really a criticism of Kings, but rather one of my continued criticisms of NBC in general. Someone over at the network needs to learn that the few seconds before each commercial break does not need to be overly dramatic! In other words, at this point in the show’s short history those people who are watching the show are probably going to stick with it for the duration. There is no need to make every pre-commercial portion of the show seem as though the world will end if you don’t tune back in. It’s tiresome and awkward and it makes those portions of the show tedious to watch.

And for someone like me, it forces me to record the show and watch it at a later point in time when I’m not going to be bothered with such stupid mid-episode arcs.

All in all, I like Kings, though I don’t know if it’ll be around for the long haul. NBC’s Crusoe was also a good show that didn’t get renewed and if Kings doesn’t bring in big numbers, then I don’t think NBC will give it a chance to make an impact. That’s a shame because the show definitely has potential.

Admissions officers nationwide point to several possible reasons for the drop in applications. Some students have pared their college lists this year. Many more are looking at less-expensive state universities. Many institutions accepted more students under binding early-decision programs, and each such acceptance drains off an average of 8 to 10 regular-decision applications. And some experts suspect that students are delaying their college plans.

I hope that the last sentence here is somewhat correct. I wrote last April about an article talking about how more students are deciding to take time off in-between high school and college. The suggestion above by the New York Times might be the proof to the previous article.

Many students would be much better served by taking this time off and getting an internship or an entry-level job somewhere. So long as high school graduates do not begin to get themselves into a mountain of debt, the option to apply to college and begin a more rigorous study is always available. Now, of course it would not be a good idea to prolong the college activities for too long. But if high school graduates are beginning to think about alternatives to the quick entrance into college, then I think that can only be a good thing.

Besides giving the students a bit more of a real world view on issues (which is often lacking in the academy), the decline in students who immediately enter college could put colleges in a new position where they have to prove the value of their education. In other words, colleges might be put in a position to have to show how each dollar spent by a student (or his/her family) can translate into real dollars earned post-graduation.

Some forward-thinking departments at the local college are already putting these facts out there – or at least trying to generate the right numbers to put out to the public. Talk about a powerful piece of information for the college applicant. Imagine being able to look at a variety of business schools and choose from the ones that have a proven track record of creating the highest paid executives? There’s some education reform that everyone can believe in…

In a season that inspires earnest letters about toys, one notable batch is being sent not by kids to Santa’s workshop but by parents to the executive suites of real-world toy makers.

The message: Please, in these days of economic angst, cut back on marketing your products directly to our children.

The letter-writing initiative was launched by the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which says roughly 1,400 of its members and supporters have contacted 24 leading toy companies and retailers to express concern about ads aimed at kids.

You have to admire the parents who would take out some time in their day to write these letters, but it makes me wonder what happened to old school parenting? What happened to a parent keeping an eye on what their children watch on television – including the commercials? And what happened to a parent telling their child, “No. You can only have one toy – not all five of them.”

I’m sure that the people who wrote these letters are fine parents and that they take good care of their children, but this just seems to me like a financially-strapped citizenry lashing out at anything around them. Why not go after those companies which put the impulse buy items at the front of the grocery store? I mean do you really need the candy bar or the deck of playing cards that are wedged up above the conveyor belt? Of course not, but they’re there for you to look at as you pay.

Better yet, why not sue all of the major retailers who have now rearranged their stores so that you cannot get to the items that you really came for unless you walk through the entire building? Look at Wal-Mart – they have all of their electronics and the toy department in the back of their stores now. What if you just want to come in and buy a DVD? You’d be subjected to advertisements on your entire way through the store and on your way out.

It goes on and on. Writing these letters was a valiant effort by these parents, but probably an activity that would have been more useful if they just sat down and educated their children on how to read and react to various advertisements.

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I suppose we all go through the same shit, I guess. I’ve concluded that my life doesn’t evolve. It’s on spin cycle, moving slowly in the same exact circle since I was 14 years old. They say that when you go to college, everything changes. It’s a time of personal growth physically, mentally, and emotionally. In theory, you go to college and bury your face in some books, some legs, and some bottles of beer and you emerge an enlightened, refined individual. You meet new people, you learn new ideas, you do different things, and I guess that’s all true. Here I am though, having the same problems, the same conversations with the same people. It’s like those past four years have now been blacked out, they didn’t happen. The only trace of this personal growth is the incessant bitching and whining about how nothing will ever be that good ever again. That this is it. We’re fucked.

Really, that’s all I have to say. Perhaps this frustration, confusion, and sense of overwhelming uncertainty sounds familiar to you. If it does, then the rest of this is for you. Perhaps the following situation is remotely familiar to you (actual translation is in parentheses).

Me: “Oh wow, hey man, I haven’t seen you in awhile. How’ve you been?” (Jesus christ, I remember this fucking loser)
You: “Oh, I’m good, bro. I’m just over at the Thompson’s working at the bar.” (Jesus christ, I didn’t want him to see me, but I work at Thompson’s, I’m so cool.)
Me: “Great man, that’s very cool. I will see you around.” (This kid is actually proud of that. What an idiot.)
You: “Sounds good, bro.” (He thought he was a big shot, but now he is 100k in debt and hanging out in the places I’ve been at all along. Idiot.”

And see, the problem is, this stupid motherfucker is right. He’s totally right and we both know it. Here I am, here my friends are with our fancy college degrees and we are right back with all of these idiots in the same exact place. I know I’m better than these people, and time will eventually reveal this, or so I’m taught to believe. But right now, tonight, there is no substantial proof of my superiority over this idiot that is proud of working at Thompson’s. And depression sets in.