Even though Good to Great is over 20 years old and many of the companies profiled have fallen from greatness, I hope that you have caught some of my enthusiasm for the concepts. I think the major challenge that we face in applying these concepts is that they were written from the perspective of a for-profit company. NYU is not a tech company; technology supports the NYU mission—it is not the NYU mission.
One way I hope I’ve helped you is by talking about the concepts that I think apply to us in our role: the importance of leadership, hiring the right people, confronting the brutal truth, and being disciplined and accountable, all while using our culture to build momentum. Two concepts that I’ve left out are the Hedgehog Concept and Technology Accelerators.
The Hedgehog Concept
I think we provide technology accelerators but we don’t drive their adoption. Enough said there.
The Hedgehog concept is more difficult. One of my main takeaways from the book is that the best organizations focus on what they can be the best at. We don’t have that luxury. We can’t narrow our focus, because we have to support NYU across all of its needs. We can make smart decisions about what unit IT does, what central IT does, and what third parties do. The Hedgehog Concept is more than that. It is understanding the economic drivers and focusing on those.
Economic drivers are easier in the for-profit sector. The common denominator is the dollar. Everything comes down to a cost or a profit, and the higher the profits the better the organization is doing. We (NYU) must take in more than we spend but we don’t judge ourselves by how much more money we make.
Good to Great addresses this in a supplement called, “Good to Great for the Social Sector.” Organizations in the social sector should evaluate themselves using a process called the “Social Sector Flywheel.” This involves identifying the key factors that drive the organization’s success and creating a plan to improve each of them in a disciplined and incremental way. Next, organizations should use data to inform their decision-making and evaluate their progress over time. Identify a few key performance indicators (KPIs) that are directly tied to the organization’s mission and goals and measure them regularly.
In addition to measuring KPIs, organizations should regularly conduct external assessments, solicit feedback from stakeholders to identify areas for improvement, and address that feedback in a meaningful way. I believe this is the most important idea. As service organizations, what our stakeholders think about us is one of the most important indicators of our success.
I hope my thoughts on Good to Great have stimulated your thinking on how you lead your organization. As leaders, it is important for us to keep thinking, and keep improving.