Jim Collins Empresas Sobresalen Capitulo 4

In the early 60´s in the United States one of the biggest retail stores in the country face a decline, this store was called A&P, once the most important retail store in the country, but after the 60´s they only offer an abundance of cheap products, with stores that looked like warehouses and with a few variety of food and other domestic products, the people start to seek for another type of services and also another kind of stores, so the retail store Kroger spot this market opportunity very well; they improve the food shopping experiences, they improve everything that the people wanted, better facilities, better services, better products and better prices. The result: Kroger became the most successful retail store in the USA; they start to expand through the country meanwhile A&P got stuck with their same services.

With these example Kroger saw the reality and face it in an appropriate way and was able to get a market position. The main idea with this is: the outstanding enterprises aren´t perfect but they are usually the ones who take the best decisions to the comparison enterprises. They are two main characteristics to face the reality:

• Infused in the whole procedure the reality facts

• Developed a simple reference framework but with a clear idea to take the decision

This is about spotting a good market opportunities and how to take advantage in the reality, but another idea exposed in this chapter is again about the leadership. One fact during the author’s research was: in the comparison enterprises usually have one scary or dictator boss who create a terror reign in the enterprise, causing scare among the employees who fear about every decision the boss take in the reality, but for the other hand in the outstanding enterprises the bosses usually create a relax environment and the employees have a lot of confidence toward the boss and the decisions to take. The author exposes 4 main points to build a relaxing and trusting work environment:

1. Guide with questions, not with answers; what is that means, usually the questions are used only with the end of understand.

2. Use the dialogue and the debate; this is because the better enterprises always use these two factors to generate the best alternatives or solutions.

3. Execute evaluations without blaming someone; in the best enterprises are usually assigned the most competent people, and if the performing declines or goes bad it´s not about seeking someone to blame, it´s about understand and learn about the mistakes and the bad taken decision.

4. Create red flag mechanisms; all the enterprises have access to the same information or data, the only difference is to despise the existing data.

One external point or idea exposed was the Stockdale Paradox;

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