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Thu Thuy Nguyen

BUS 395
Instructor Raymond Specht
1/30/2014
Why is good the enemy of great?
Good is the enemy of great. There are so many things out there that are just good; good
schools, good businesses, and even people just living good lives (Collins 1). There are very few
things out there that would be considered great. The reason why that is, and why the enemy of
good is great, is because people become content with where they are at. It is much easier to
settle than to strive for greatness. At school, it is less effort to just pass with an average grade
than to try to pass with a one hundred percent. At work, employees stay at where they are
because it is more comfortable. In life, people would rather stick to their daily routine than to
continue to self-improve. It is a cycle thats easy to get used to.
This is the very problem that many companies have accepted. When businesses become
content with good, they do not continue to develop. In this ever changing world, there is
always new technology and new competition to keep up with, that if a business does not change
with these economic changes then they will eventually fall. Even great companies never stop
developing, their always looking to expand and wait for the day when an unsuspecting
competitor makes it on the scene.
In his study, Jim Collins found that good companies dont make the leap to great because
they have the perception that being great requires exponential efforts; but in fact, the leap from

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good to great is not that far. Collins writes about the success story of Kimberly-Clark, A stodgy
old paper company whose stock had fallen thirty-six percent behind the general market over the
previous twenty years (Collins 17). In turns out, some good-to-great companies started out in
terrible industries; Collins hopes were to find the reasons why some companies in the same
industry with the same opportunities and similar resources made the leap while others didnt.
The CEO that transitioned Kimberly-Clark to the success it is today was no other than
Darwin Smith. He is considered by Collins to be a Level 5 leader. Smith was modest, fierce,
and professional at best. One day, he made the most dramatic decision in the companys history:
Sell the mills. Shortly after he became CEO, Smith and his team had concluded that the
traditional core business- coated paper- was doomed to mediocrity (Collins 18). Smith wanted
to move the company in a different direction with competition that would either make the
company sink or float. He wanted Kimberly-Clark to become part of the consumer paperproducts industry with world class competition like Proctor & Gamble. Twenty-five years later,
Kimberly-Clark owned Scott Paper outright and beat Proctor & Gamble in six of eight product
categories (Collins 20). This company was an extreme good-to-great example but they never
settled for good. It may have been easier to be content but their business wouldnt have survived
for much longer. They needed a new direction, and even when the possibilities were slim to
none, they never wavered. They kept on keeping on, and became great. Good is the enemy of
great because change is required to be great, and those who are content with good, avoid change.
Work Cited
Collins, James C. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap--and Others Don't. New
York, NY: HarperBusiness, 2001. Print.