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Nine Challenges for Companies That Choose to Be Great

Being good is okay, being great is even better; change is not easy, but sure is profitable.

In this short book summary, we outline the keynotes that endorse this theory.

Who Should Read “Good Enough Isn’t Enough”? And Why?

It is not easy to write a book intended for one particular group of people; capable of understanding author’s perspective. That is the case here. However, Alan doesn’t take away the opportunity away, and leaves this classic to all open-minded individuals.

“Good Enough Isn’t Enough” book is recommended for executives, officials, and managers in every company on a global scale. New management approach is the key to success; organizations have to abandon the old, inefficient methods to enjoy success.

About Alan Weiss

Alan Weiss is an American-born speaker, writer, and a successful businessman. He was born on 3rd March 1946 in New Jersey where he grew up. In 1964, he graduated from Emerson High School and received political science degrees from Rutgers which was a great honor for him at the time.

Success continued to follow him, and in 1968 Weiss unsurprisingly joined Prudential Insurance.

In the same year, Princeton offered him a position as a consultant; from that day on, his consulting career began.

As a renowned consulting speaker and author; Alan has written over 400 articles, and ten books. “Good Enough Isn’t Enough” is just one of them.

“Good Enough Isn’t Enough Summary”

Every business pursues and wants to obtain a lasting degree of greatness, yet very few succeed. The power of a unique product is to get the company to the top of prosperity; however, only exceptional management skills and organization are capable of keeping the company there.

The easiest path to greatness and success is to emulate big enterprises, which maintained their financial position for a long time. You must follow them, learn and them and apply some of their principles.

Corporate culture is still an unknown territory for managers, economists, and even owners. The core or essence is embedded into the company’s mechanism, the way it functions, the presence of hierarchy and clear vision. Managers must be apt to align corporate goals with personal achievements; without maintaining a perfect balance, one or the other side will suffer.

But how?

Traditional standards in which the focus is placed on “customer needs” won’t do you any good. Even though it seems challenging, perhaps even irrational, without aligning individual and corporate goals the business will face its downfall, which indicates Alan Weiss’s point. The associates must be familiar with the new policy; procedures which will increase their salaries, improve their working conditions and make them motivated.

All levels of your organization have to expand their incentive schemes or getting the employees involved in new methods that would change the entire concept of a job. Organizational chains of command should tend to inflict new standards in disguise; make people feel the support from the company, get them understand their value; after all, they are all on the same team.

Alan Weiss’s urgent call for corporate supremacy probably reminds you of your caring parents and their authoritarian behavior towards you. Youth is full of rebellion, even though at some level, you always knew they were right but their “conservative viewpoints” didn’t suit you at the time.

Teenage years could not last forever; when they do pass, a person starts to realize and see things differently. Weiss criticizes today’s non-existing sense of social responsibility, which represents some curse that has spoiled the real corporate values and standards.

A company should not strive to lower its standards, but maintain one consisting level of valuable principles to achieve an ever-lasting organizational excellence. Alan advises executives to reconsider their notion of chasing management fads and turn to a more common-sense approach that doesn’t include high-priced consultants. Thus, he warns company’s officials who are surrounded by sycophants – carried away by their strong egos.

What it seems like?

His words and theories are somehow dispatched to enter deep into the corporate mechanism because according to Alan, today’s firms are facing competition on a global scale so they must strive to be one step ahead of their potential and existing competition else.

Executives’ biggest enemy is time. Take for example new technologies- even though the world relies on technological improvements, a significant portion of the population is aversive to it. They don’t want to be a part of the learning process once again. 

From time to time, Weiss also seems to be a little carried away, regardless of his strong mentality, and clear vision addressed towards corporate imperfections, problems, and the solutions to those problems. 

Key Lessons from “Good Enough Isn’t Enough”

1.      Be realistic; customers are not always right
2.      The result is an embodiment of the company’s value
3.      You are responsible for the well-being of your colleagues or associates

Be realistic; customers are not always right

Being realistic is equally important as the customers are.

Nevertheless, the industrial era is long gone, the companies today are customer-centric. Associates know, but they pretend they do not – customers are not always right.

By granting every customer wish, your company will lose its core-structure; if you don’t want for that to happen, reconsider your approach.

The result is an embodiment of the company’s value

Numbers are what matters; only the results count. Do not measure your business’s success on controversial grounds. The production itself is harmonious with the outcome; don’t lead your organization into pitfall by focusing on inputs.

A manager manages calls; it doesn’t answer calls!!

You are responsible for the well-being of your colleagues or associates

You as an executive must avoid at any cost, the appearance of a competitive workplace. The employees have to help one another.

The management has to create an atmosphere of support for the people working in and for the company by supporting their ideas and efforts.

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“Good Enough Isn’t Enough” Quotes

Our Critical Review

So, good enough isn’t enough, implies that being “okay” is not enough to last nowadays. Be prepared and ready for the new era; don’t crawl- Stand Firmly and move alongside technological advancement.

Emir Zecovic

Emir is the Head of Marketing at 12min. In his spare time, he loves to meditate and play soccer.