{"id":1223,"date":"2022-06-01T15:39:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T19:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/?p=1223"},"modified":"2022-06-01T15:57:28","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T19:57:28","slug":"what-it-takes-to-go-from-good-to-great-confront-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/01\/what-it-takes-to-go-from-good-to-great-confront-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"What It Takes to Go From \u2018Good\u2019 to \u2018Great\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" <\/a>Confront Reality<\/span><\/h3>\n

In past articles, we discussed two traits (humble yet driven leaders, and the right people) that author Jim Collins says successful companies embody. Now, we\u2019ll touch on the third trait in Collins\u2019 book\u00a0 <\/span>Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don\u2019t<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Great Companies\u2019 trait #3: Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Good-to-great companies have leaders who confront the reality of their situation\u2014even when it\u2019s less than ideal. Only by acknowledging the truth can the right decisions be made to improve the circumstances.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Confronting the brutal facts involves:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Being truthful,<\/li>\n
  • Asking for truthfulness<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Acting upon truth\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    But there\u2019s more to it than that. Good-to-great businesses keep faith in their mission and goals. They don\u2019t let pessimism cloud their vision for a brighter future. At the same time, they acknowledge and accept there will be hard work ahead to overcome the challenges that stand in their way of achieving that vision.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Three Tips for Getting to the Truth of the Situation\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Collins suggests several ways business leaders can understand their company\u2019s reality. We\u2019ve put our own twist on three of them that we believe may be helpful for contractors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    1. Lead with questions, not answers.\u00a0<\/b>Ask for opinions and input from your workers and customers to learn the facts as they really are<\/i>. Don\u2019t try to steer people into saying what retrofits into your grand vision.<\/span><\/p>\n

    This point is crucial for charismatic business owners with a strong leadership personality. Their outspokenness and strong opinions may overshadow the ideas of less-vocal workers and customers.<\/p>\n

    2. Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion. <\/b>Open the door to discussion and allow room for disagreement (in casual and<\/i> formal situations). Don\u2019t try to force people to think a certain way. Debate enables people to share different perspectives and ideas for problem-solving and improvements. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    3. Conduct autopsies without blame. <\/b>When things go wrong, discuss them with your team. Take care to do so in the spirit of wanting to get better as a company rather than to condemn people for making mistakes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Stay tuned for more insight about going from good to great! Next time, we\u2019ll talk about Collins\u2019 \u201cHedgehog Concept.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Confront Reality In past articles, we discussed two traits (humble yet driven leaders, and the right people) that author Jim Collins says successful companies embody. Now, we\u2019ll touch on the third trait in Collins\u2019 book\u00a0 Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don\u2019t. Great Companies\u2019 trait #3: Confront…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1240,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions\/1240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homesteadoutdoorproducts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}