Here are the facts of life about these and other change myths. Companies that make the change from good to great have no name for their transformation -- and absolutely no program. They neither rant nor rave about a crisis -- and they don't manufacture one where none exists. They don't "motivate" people -- their people are self-motivated. There's no evidence of a connection between money and change mastery. And fear doesn't drive change -- but it does perpetuate mediocrity. Nor can acquisitions provide a stimulus for greatness: Two mediocrities never make one great company. Technology is certainly important -- but it comes into play only after change has already begun. And as for the final myth, dramatic results do not come from dramatic process -- not if you want them to last, anyway. A serious revolution, one that feels like a revolution to those going through it, is highly unlikely to bring about a sustainable leap from being good to being great.

In each of these dramatic, remarkable, good-to-great corporate transformations, we found the same thing: There was no miracle moment. Instead, a down-to-earth, pragmatic, committed-to-excellence process -- a framework -- kept each company, its leaders, and its people on track for the long haul. In each case, it was the triumph of the Flywheel Effect over the Doom Loop, the victory of steadfast discipline over the quick fix. And the real kicker: The comparison companies in our study -- firms with virtually identical opportunities during the pivotal years -- did buy into the change myths described above -- and failed to make the leap from good to great.

How Change Doesn't Happen

Picture an egg. Day after day, it sits there. No one pays attention to it. No one notices it. Certainly no one takes a picture of it or puts it on the cover of a celebrity-focused business magazine. Then one day, the shell cracks and out jumps a chicken. All of a sudden, the major magazines and newspapers jump on the story: "Stunning Turnaround at Egg!" and "The Chick Who Led the Breakthrough at Egg!" From the outside, the story always reads like an overnight sensation -- as if the egg had suddenly and radically altered itself into a chicken.

Now picture the egg from the chicken's point of view. While the outside world was ignoring this seemingly dormant egg, the chicken within was evolving, growing, developing -- changing. From the chicken's point of view, the moment of breakthrough, of cracking the egg, was simply one more step in a long chain of steps that had led up to that moment. Granted, it was a big step -- but it was hardly the radical transformation that it looked like from the outside.

It's a silly analogy -- but then our conventional way of looking at change is no less silly. Everyone looks for the "miracle moment" when "change happens." But ask the good-to-great executives when change happened. They cannot pinpoint a single key event that exemplified their successful transition. We keep looking for change in the wrong places, asking the wrong questions, and making the wrong assumptions.

How Change Does Happen

Now picture a huge, heavy flywheel. It's a massive, metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle. It's about 100 feet in diameter, 10 feet thick, and it weighs about 25 tons. That flywheel is your company. Your job is to get that flywheel to move as fast as possible, because momentum -- mass times velocity -- is what will generate superior economic results over time.

Right now, the flywheel is at a standstill. To get it moving, you make a tremendous effort. You push with all of your might, and finally, you get the flywheel to inch forward. You keep pushing steadily. It makes three turns, four turns, five, six. With each turn, it moves faster, and then -- at some point, you can't say exactly when -- you break through. The momentum of the heavy wheel kicks in your favor. It spins faster and faster, with its own weight propelling it. You aren't pushing any harder, but the flywheel is accelerating, its momentum building, its speed increasing.

This is the Flywheel Effect. It's what it feels like when you're inside a company that makes the transition from good to great. Think about it for one minute. Why do most overhyped change programs ultimately fail? Because they lack accountability, they fail to achieve credibility, and they have no authenticity. It's the opposite of the Flywheel Effect; it's the Doom Loop.

Companies that fall into the Doom Loop genuinely want to effect change -- but they lack the quiet discipline that produces the Flywheel Effect. Instead, they launch change programs with huge fanfare, hoping to "enlist the troops." They start down one path, only to change direction. Instead of turning the flywheel, they've fallen into a Doom Loop: Disappointing results lead to reaction without understanding, which leads to a new direction -- a new leader, a new program -- which leads to no momentum, which leads to disappointing results. It's a steady, downward spiral.

In contrast, why does the Flywheel Effect work? Because more than anything else, real people in real companies want to be part of a winning team. They want to contribute to producing real results. They want to feel the excitement and the satisfaction of being part of something that just flat-out works. When people begin to feel the magic of momentum -- when they begin to see tangible results and can feel the flywheel start to build speed -- that's when they line up, throw their shoulders to the wheel, and push.

And that's how change really happens.

Disciplined People: "Who" Before "What"

You are a bus driver. The bus, your company, is at a standstill, and it's your job to get it going. You have to decide where you're going, how you're going to get there, and who's going with you. Most people assume that great bus drivers ( read: business leaders ) immediately start the journey by announcing to the people on the bus where they're going -- by setting a new direction or by articulating a fresh corporate vision.

In fact, leaders of companies that go from good to great start not with "where" but with "who." They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick with that discipline -- first the people, then the direction -- no matter how dire the circumstances.

When it comes to getting started, good-to-great leaders understand three simple truths:

• First - if you begin with "who," you can more easily adapt to a fast-changing world. If people get on your bus because of where they think it's going, you'll be in trouble when you get 10 miles down the road and discover that you need to change direction because the world has changed. But if people board the bus principally because of all the other great people on the bus, you'll be much faster and smarter in responding to changing conditions.
• Second - if you have the right people on your bus, you don't need to worry about motivating them. The right people are self-motivated: Nothing beats being a part of a team that is expected to produce great results.
• Third- if you have the wrong people on the bus, nothing else matters. You may be headed in the right direction, but you still won't achieve greatness. Great vision with mediocre people still produces mediocre results.

Disciplined Thought: Fox or Hedgehog?

Picture two animals: a fox and a hedgehog. Which are you? An ancient Greek parable distinguishes between foxes, which know many small things, and hedgehogs, which know one big thing. All good-to-great leaders, it turns out, are hedgehogs. They know how to simplify a complex world into a single, organizing idea -- the kind of basic principle that unifies, organizes, and guides all decisions. That's not to say hedgehogs are simplistic. Like great thinkers, who take complexities and boil them down into simple, yet profound, ideas ( Adam Smith and the invisible hand, Darwin and evolution ), leaders of good-to-great companies develop a Hedgehog Concept that is simple but that reflects penetrating insight and deep understanding.

What does it take to come up with a Hedgehog Concept for your company? Start by confronting the brutal facts. One good-to-great CEO began by asking, "Why have we sucked for 100 years?" That's brutal -- and it's precisely the type of disciplined question necessary to ignite a transformation. The management climate during a leap from good to great is like a searing scientific debate -- with smart, tough-minded people examining hard facts and debating what those facts mean. The point isn't to win the debate, but rather to come up with the best answers -- and, ultimately, to lock onto a Hedgehog Concept that works.

In the journey from good to great, defining your Hedgehog Concept is an essential element. But insight and understanding don't happen overnight -- or after one off-site. On average, it took four years for the good-to-great companies to crystallize their Hedgehog Concepts. It was an inherently iterative process -- consisting of piercing questions, vigorous debate, resolute action, and autopsies without blame -- a cycle repeated over and over by the right people, infused with the brutal facts, and guided by the three circles. This is the chicken inside the egg.

Now It Begins

Our study of what it takes to turn good into great required 5 years -- and 10.5 person-years -- and amounted to our own flywheel effort. Looking back on our research, what's most striking to me about our findings is the absence of a magic moment in any of the good-to-great companies -- or in our own journey to understanding. The real path to greatness, it turns out, requires simplicity and diligence. It requires clarity, not instant illumination. It demands each of us to focus on what is vital -- and to eliminate all of the extraneous distractions.

After five years of research, I'm absolutely convinced that if we just focus our attention on the right things -- and stop doing the senseless things that consume so much time and energy -- we can create a powerful Flywheel Effect without increasing the number of hours we work.

I'm also convinced that the good-to-great findings apply broadly -- not just to CEOs, but also to you and me in whatever work we're engaged in, including the work of our own lives. For many people, the first question that occurs is, "But how do I persuade my CEO to get it?" My answer: Don't worry about that. Focus instead on results -- on subverting mediocrity by creating a Flywheel Effect within your own span of responsibility. So long as we can choose the people we want to put on our own minibus, each of us can create a pocket of greatness. Each of us can take our own area of work and influence and can concentrate on moving it from good to great. It doesn't really matter whether all the CEOs get it. It only matters that you and I do. Now, it's time to get to work.

Sidebar: Separating the Good From the Great

Can a good company become a great company? How? It took Jim Collins and his team of researchers 5 years to come up with the answers: 11 companies made the leap from good to great and then sustained those results for at least 15 years. How great was great? The good-to-great companies averaged cumulative stock returns 6.9 times the general market in the 15 years after their transition points. The actual screening-and-selection process was a rigorous one. The criteria were:

1. The company had to show a pattern of good performance, punctuated by a transition point, after which it shifted to great performance. "Great performance" was defined as a cumulative total stock return of at least three times the general market for the period from the transition point through 15 years.

2. The transition from good to great had to be company specific, not an industrywide event.

3. The company had to be an established and ongoing enterprise -- not a startup. It had to have been in business for at least 25 years prior to its transition, and it had to have been publicly traded with stock-return data available for at least 10 years prior to its transition.

4. The transition point had to occur before 1985 to give the team enough data to assess the sustainability of the transition.

5. Whatever the year of transition, the company had to be a significant, ongoing, stand-alone company.

6. At the time of its selection, the company still had to show an upward trend.

The study began with a field of 1,435 companies and emerged with a list of 11 good-to-great companies: Abbott Laboratories, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette Co., Kimberly-Clark Corp., the Kroger Co., Nucor Corp., Philip Morris Cos. Inc., Pitney Bowes Inc., Walgreens, and Wells Fargo.

The next step in the study was to isolate what it took to make the change. At this point, each of the 11 good-to-great companies was paired with a comparison company -- a company with similar attributes that could have made the transition, but didn't.

Then the research began. Collins and his team reviewed books, articles, case studies, and annual reports covering each company; examined financial analyses for each company, totaling 980 combined years of data; conducted 84 interviews with senior managers and board members of the companies; scrutinized the personal and professional records of 56 CEOs; analyzed compensation plans for the companies; and reviewed layoffs, corporate ownership, "media hype," and the role of technology for the companies.

The findings are contained in Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... And Others Don't (HarperBusiness, 2001).