How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

M. Hart says:

Review by M. Hart for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
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The 1967 musical comedy “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” is based upon a 1962 Broadway musical of the same name, as well as the similarly titled novel that was written by Shepherd Mead. The story begins with J. Pierpont Finch (Robert Morse) who works as a skyscraper window washer. He finds and begins to read a self-help book entitled “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying”. Following advice from the book and while washing windows outside, he sneaks into of an office of the World Wide Wicket Corporation (WWWC). Quickly stripping out of his orange window-washing coveralls, Finch wears a smart business suit beneath and quickly endears himself to the company’s president, J.B. Biggley (Rudy Vallee), one of the secretaries, Rosemary Pilkington (Michelle Lee), as well as a host of yes-men vice presidents. Impressed, J.B. sends Finch to the personnel office to be promptly hired to work in the company’s mailroom. There, Finch meets J.B.’s nephew, Bud Frump (Anthony Teague), who also works for WWWC in the mailroom. Continuing to follow advice from the self-help book, Finch finagles and brownnoses his way up the corporate ladder in record speed and develops a love interest with Rosemary, but not everyone is happy with Finch’s rise within the company. J.B. also hires a very attractive ‘friend’, Hedy LaRue (Maureen Arthur), who has little experience working in an office, but has a lot of experience with men.The engaging, original music in the film, which was written by Frank Loesser, includes the songs: * “How To” (sung by Robert Morse).
* “The Company Way” (sung by Robert Morse).
* “A Secretary Is Not A Toy” (sung by company employees).
* “Been A Long Day” (sung by company employees).
* “Rosemary” (sung by Robert Morse).
* “Grand Old Ivy” (sung by Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee).
* “I Believe In You” (sung by Michelle Lee).
* “Brotherhood Of Man” (sung by company employees).Though some of the activities shown in “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” are dated and chauvinistic by today’s business standards (and discouraged by the Labor Department and the EEOC), the basic message of the story regarding nepotism, brownnosing, favoritism, scapegoating, affairs between employees, people hired for their appearance, backstabbing and mismanagement within corporations is just as relevant today as it was over 40 years ago. Creative employees are summarily fired for their ideas, others with more corporate clout get those same ideas approved by management. People who went to the right schools or joined the right clubs move up quickly, as well as people who easily agree with superiors and/or dress as well as possible. It’s not what you know, but who you know, how well you brownnose, how good of an appearance you make and how well you avoid trouble that makes one successful in the corporate world.Robert Morse is hilarious in the film, as are Rudy Vallee, Maureen Arthur and Michelle Lee. The film was well scripted and the sets are appropriate for a late 1960′s office building. It is likely that the film inspired Michael J. Fox’s 1987 film, “The Secret of My Succe$s”. Overall, I rate the film with 5 out of 5 stars. So sit back, get a bowl of popcorn and see whether you want to do things the company way.

MZ says:

Review by MZ for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
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This musical transcends time. What was true in the 1960s – and before – is still true today. That is why this musical is a true mockery of the corporate world, which is in turn why it made my musical-mocking husband laugh out loud and physically turn away from the computer to watch. Before I bought the DVD version of How to $ucceed, I had seen it performed live. I loved it and subsequently purchased the soundtrack featuring Matthew Broderick.So, as you can see, it was with an already deep affection for (and prejudiced mind) that I bought the movie version. It surprised me greatly that this vision of How to $ucceed met up to my already high standards. Only a few songs from the musical were not included. But the movie is 2 hours long, so it was necessary to do some cutting.If you like musicals, if you like big business, if you like to make fun of big business, this movie will make you laugh.As far as the DVD goes, there were not a lot of special features, which is to be expected from an older film. It did include the trailer, which was amusing in its retro-style, and it’s nice to be able to go back and play the scene of a particular song I liked here and there. The widescreen version really enhanced the film for me, especially when my cats decided to nap lazily on the television and dangle their limbs about while I was watching.Good movie!

Professor Donald Mitchell says:

Review by Professor Donald Mitchell for Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
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This study was stimulated by Mr. Bill Meehan’s (head of McKinsey in San Francisco) observation that Built to Last wasn’t very helpful to companies, because the firms studied had always been great. Most companies have been good, and never great. What should these firms do? Jim Collins and his team have done an enormous amount of interesting work to determine whether a good company can be come a great company, and how. The answer to the former question is “yes,” assuming that the 11 of 1435 Fortune 500 companies did not make it there by accident. The answer to the latter is less clear. The study group identified a number of characteristics that their 11 companies had in common, which were much less frequently present in comparison companies. However, the study inexplicably fails to look at these same characteristics to see how often they succeed in the general population of companies. If these characteristics work 100 percent of the time, you really have something. If they work 5 percent of the time, then not too much is proven. How were the 11 study companies selected? The criteria take pages to explain in an appendix. Let me simplify by saying that their stock price growth had to be in a range from somewhat lower than to not much higher than the market averages for 15 years. Then, in the next 15 years the stocks had to soar versus the market averages and comparison companies while remaining independent. That’s hard to do. The selected companies are Abbott Laboratories, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette, Kimberly-Clark, Kroger, Nucor, Philip Morris, Pitney Bowes, Walgreen, and Wells Fargo. As to the “how,” attention was focused on what happened before and during the transition from average performance to high performance. Interviews, quantitative analyses, and business press reports were studied. Clearly, there’s a tendency to see things a little bit with 20-20 hindsight in such a situation. Since this study started in 1996, it was dealing with facts that were already quite old while they were being examined. Bias is likely. The key conclusions as to “how” included the following:(1) a series of CEOs (promoted from within) who combined “personal humility and professional will” focused on making a great company;(2) an initial focus on eliminating weak people, adding top performing ones, and establishing a culture of top talent putting out extraordinary effort;(3) then shifting attention to staring at and thinking unceasingly about the hardest facts about the company’s situation;(4) using facts to develop a simple concept that is iteratively reconsidered to focus action on improving performance;(5) establishing and maintaining a corporate culture of discipline built around commitments, with freedom about how to meet those promises;(6) using technology to accelerate progress when it fits the company’s concept of what it wants to become; and(7) the company builds momentum from consistent efforts behind its concept that are reinforced by success. Then, a connection is made to how these 7 conditions can provide the foundation for establishing a Built to Last type of company that can outperform the competition over many decades. One potential criticism of the study is that its conclusions could be dated. Former Stanford professor Collins argues that he has uncovered basic facts about human organizations that will be unchanging.I compared the conclusions in this book with my own studies of top performing CEOs and companies in the 1988-2001 time period. I noticed two major differences that suggest a shift in “best practice” standards. First, those who outperform now have developed processes that create major improvements in their operating business models every 2-5 years. Second, senior management development is focused around improving a culture for defining and implementing such improvements. I suspect that item (4) above was an embryonic predecessor to these new dimensions, which occur much more frequently now than in this study. Next, I compared the list of 7 items to what I had observed in companies. The biggest point that hit me is how few CEOs have been interested in creating long-term outperformance that lasts past their own tenure in an industry. You also have to be a CEO for a long time with that focus before you have a chance to make a lasting impact. Founders have a special advantage here. Perpetuating outperformance may help fill a psychological need for immortality that fits with founders especially well. Finally, I thought about what I knew about the companies studied from personal contacts during the study years. My sense is that their stories are far more complex than is captured here. So, I think the data have probably been “scrunched” to fit together in some cases. In particular, I wonder whether these companies will greatly outperform in the next 15 years. In many cases, they expanded to meet an unfilled need that is now largely fulfilled. Can they develop a new concept for (4) that will carry them forward as successfully in the future? My guess is that most will not. If that turns out to be the case, we must conclude that the items on this list may be necessary . . . but may not be sufficient to go permanently from good to great. Time will tell.Before closing, let me observe that if the research team had also looked at the rate by which their principles succeeded among companies that employed them, this would have been one of the very finest research studies on best practices that I have seen. A book like this will provoke much discussion and thought for years to come. Perhaps that information can be included in a future edition or printing. Then, we will have something magnificent to consider!Do you want to be the best permanently? Why? Or, why not? Mr. Collins points out that it probably takes no more effort, but a lot more discipline and focus.

Dan E. Ross says:

Review by Dan E. Ross for Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
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Jim Collins, co-author of Built To Last, has done it again! This time he spent 5 years trying to find out what differentiates good companies from great companies. This study can be applied to entrepreneurial ventures and to current corporate America. After reading this book you may see your company from a much different perspective than in the past and it may have you thinking about the effectiveness of senior managers within your company. I believe it is a book that business executives will read and keep handy for reference.This book is a study of companies that exceed their industry, the overall stock market and produce PHENOMENAL returns over a 15-year period (15 of them are very “normal” years and the next 15 years are full of explosive growth). Some key points you will take away from this book include:1) Growth in most companies came after years and years of trying to adapt / mold a concept into something the company truly believed in. Once this happened the growth engine got going.
2) Great managers worry more about getting the right people on board and the wrong people off board BEFORE they establish a corporate stategy.
3) Most great CEOs came from within their own ranks and weren’t recruited from the outside.
4) Executive compensation didn’t appear to be a key driver of corporate performance
5) The respective great companies exceeded the overall stock market in creating shareholder value by at least 3x during their 15 year run measured (some for many more years). While some may say this is not much think about the steel industry and how many are filing for bankruptcy. Nucor Steel still managed to beat the S&P by more than 3x.
6) The great companies in this book blew away their comparable peer group. Wells Fargo vs. Bank of America, Kroger vs. other grocery chains, Walgreens vs. Eckerd, etc.
7) Collins describes a Level 5 leader. After reading this section I was amazed at how many CEOs I recognized as not being Level 5 leaders. This may, in the near future, shake up executive compensation plans, CEO searches and potentially affect corporate governance.
Technology accelerated a transformation but was regarded as a tool. It didn’t define the company.
9) M&A activity played virtually no role in going from good to great.That is all I will write about the book. I could write on and on about how good this book is. Read it. It will change the way you think about business. Other very good books on the principles of business and entrepreneurship are Leading at the Speed of Growth by Catlin and Mathews and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Jack Trout and Al Ries.

bmcintire says:

Review by bmcintire for Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
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Good to Great is a comphrehensive research project, well written
and entertaining to read, Good to Great is a worthy successor to, and in the tradition of, Built to Last.