Great by Choice

Jim Collins has sold more than 10 million books worldwide, including his bestsellers Good to Great, Built to Last and How the Mighty Fall. Morten T. Hansen, a management professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Information, wrote Collaboration. They explore how certain companies excel during volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) times. They offer anecdotes, historic examples, case studies and business models to illustrate their theories and observations in this broadly acclaimed business classic.

10X

Collins and Hansen ask, how did some companies thrive while others dwindled? The organizations that moved from a vulnerable position to spectacular performance embraced change, the authors say, as the only constant. Yet, these 10X firms – so-called by the authors because they beat their industry indexes by a factor of 10 – often faced issues that sank other organizations. For example, Collins and Hansen offer the example of Pacific Southwest Airlines which suffered despite having the same business model and opportunity as Southwest Airlines, an exemplary 10X.