BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0): Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company

Here, then, is a basic architecture of executive decision making we found in our research: Determine how much time you have to decide, whether minutes, hours, days, months, or even years. Stimulate dialogue and debate—guided by facts and evidence—to determine the best options. Make a decision, firm and unambiguous, once you’re clear on what must be

BACK WORDS WITH ACTION

Leadership Style Element 2: Decisiveness George C. Marshall pointed out that the greatest gift a leader can have is the ability to decide. Judging from how many executives suffer from chronic indecision, we think Marshall might be right. Leaders who build great companies seldom suffer from indecision. The ability to decide—to somehow come to a deci

Just think of the “who luck” in your own life. It could be the luck of stumbling across a life-altering mentor. It could be the luck of finding a great friend or an ideal life partner or an incredible boss or teammate. It could also take the form of stumbling across someone who’d be a spectacular person on your bus.

“If we believe in our culture,” they said to themselves, “why not bet big on it?” So, they bought a retail company, Lojas Americanas, and a beer company, Brahma. Their thesis proved correct: If they had the right people with the right cultural DNA, they could deploy those right people into acquired businesses and win big. Lemann and his partners fo

CHOICES—DECISIVENESS REVISITED Setting priorities requires making tough choices as to what is really important. One reason so many people have such a difficult time getting focused is that they also have a difficult time making decisions: they balk at choosing which items will be left off their priority list. And you must be willing to take items o

Effective Corporate Leadership

What makes for a key seat? Any seat meeting any one of the following three conditions qualifies as key: The person in that seat has the power to make significant people decisions. Failure in the seat could expose the entire enterprise to significant risk or potential catastrophe. Success in the seat would have a significantly outsized impact on the

Of course, you need good big bets. The wrong big bets can damage or even cripple a very successful company. So, then, what makes a good big bet distinct from a bad big bet? Empirical validation. This is what the principle “Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs” from Great by Choice is all about (described previously, in The Map chapter).