Chapter 6 – A Culture of Discipline
Key points
- Sustained great results depend upon building a culture full of self-disciplined people who take disciplined action, fanatically consistent with the three circles.
- Bureaucratic cultures arise to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline, which arise from having the wrong people on the bus in the first place. If you get the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off, you don’t need stultifying bureaucracy
- A culture of discipline involves a duality. On the one hand, it requires people who adhere to a consistent system; yet, on the other hand, it gives people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system
- A culture of discipline is not just about action, It is abut getting disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who then take disciplined action.
- The good to great companies appear boring and pedestrian looking in from the outside, bit upon closer inspection, they’re full of people who display extreme diligence and a stunning intensity ( they “rise their cottage cheese”)
- Do not confuse a culture of discipline with a tyrant who disciplines – they are very different concepts, one highly functional, the other highly dysfunctional. Savior CEOs who personally usually fail to produce sustained results.
- The single most important form of discipline for sustained results is fanatical adherence to the Hedgehog Concept and the willingness to shun opportunities that fall outside the three circles.
Unexpected findings
- The more an organization had the discipline to stay within its three circles, with almost religious consistency, the more it will have opportunities for growth.
- The fact that something is a “once-in-a-lifetime” is irrelevant, unless it fits within the threee circles. A great company will have many once-in-a-time opportunities.
- The purpose of budgeting in a good to great company is not to decide how much each activity gets, but to decide which arenas best fit with the Hedgehog Concept and should be fully funded and which should not be funded at all.
- “Stop doing” lists are more important than “to do” lists.
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