The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary PerformersThe vast majority of small businesses stay small—and not by choice. Only the most savvy and persistent—a tiny one tenth of one percent—break through to annual sales above $250 million. In The Breakthrough Company, Keith McFarland pinpoints how everyday companies become extraordinary, showing that luck is a negligible factor. Rather, breakthrough success turns out to be associated with a clearly identifiable set of strategies and skills that anyone in any business can emulate—from small startup to industry leader. Encouraged by experts such as business legend Peter Drucker and Good to Great author Jim Collins to identify the drivers that enable a company to push past the entrepreneurial phase, McFarland spent five years building and analyzing the world’s largest growth-company performance database and interviewing more than 1,500 growth-company executives on four continents. His goal was simple: to identify the secrets of breakthrough. The Breakthrough Company is the result. Winnowing a study pool of more than 7,000 companies down to nine that have made the transition to major-player status, McFarland highlights real-world tools and myth-busting insights that can be used by anyone wanting his or her business to join this exclusive circle. Among the book’s takeaways: • Common wisdom holds that the founders and core entrepreneurial leaders of a company must step aside for the business to reach the next level. Not true—as long as founders “crown the company” instead of themselves. • It’s not reckless to make ever-escalating bets on your company’s future, even going nose to nose with competitors many times your size. In fact, it turns out that the only safety comes in constantly upping the ante in exactly this way. • A Business Bermuda Triangle does exist, gobbling up companies on the verge of breakthrough. Presented here are three ways to navigate this potentially deadly hazard successfully. • However good you are—or think you are—you can’t do it alone. Learn how to surround your company with networks of outside resources, aka “scaffolding,” and how to enlist the aid of “insultants”—people who are willing to question a firm’s existing assumptions and ways of doing business. With powerful and specific action steps concluding each chapter—and invaluable advice on virtually every page from business leaders who’ve taken their companies to extraordinary levels of growth and profitability—The Breakthrough Company is one of the most provocative, inspiring, and instructive business books you’ll ever read. |
Contents
9 | |
Crowning the Company | 27 |
Upping the Ante | 55 |
Building Company Character | 93 |
Navigating the Business Bermuda Triangle | 121 |
Erecting Scaffolding | 145 |
Enlisting Insultants | 167 |
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The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers Keith McFarland No preview available - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
ADTRAN advantages Amercable annual Arctic Cat asked big bets bigger Bob Kierlin Breakthrough Ranking Business Bermuda Triangle chapter Chico's ChipSoft coaching compa companies we studied company's comparison companies competitive competitors costs create CROWNING THE COMPANY customers decisions Eliminated employees engineers entrepreneurial leaders executives Fastenal fieldwork Filter Stage firm firm's focus Fort Myers founder Golisano growth Harvard Business School HDSL Huntsville Ibid ideas important Included in Stage industry Inside Intuit Boston insultants Interview subject 14 investment Kathy Schroeder leadership MECA Software Medina Microsoft Microsoft Money million Private Equity Mountainview NAVIGATING THE BUSINESS ness nine breakthrough companies Olson Company pany Paychex percent Polaris Polaris's profit public companies Research Interview subject revenues Rochester Roger Staubach scaffolding Scott Cook small companies snowmobile strategy subject 97 success things Tiller tion told Tom Golisano tough transcript M-1 wanted Winona