FOCUS YOUR TIME AND MONEY Beyond "Good' To "Great'.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)(IBD'S 10 SECRETS TO SUCCESS)

Byline: Linda Stockman-Vines

7 Ever wonder why your company achieves only mediocre results? Perhaps it's because you're focusing on being good instead of being great, says Boulder, Colo.-based researcher and author Jim Collins in his newest book, "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap" (Harper Business, 2001).

"Good is the enemy of great," Collins wrote. "We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government."

In the same vein, "The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good -- and that is their main problem."

The good -- or rather, "great" -- news resulting from Collins' five years of research is that any company willing to focus on a handful of key principles can make the transition from good to great. Here are his recommendations:

First decide who will staff your company. Then decide what your goals will be. "The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there," Collins said. "They first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it."

When it comes to making people decisions, great companies do at least three things right. They adhere to a "When in doubt, don't hire -- keep looking" philosophy; act when personnel change is called for; and assign top performers to take advantage of big opportunities -- not to handle big problems.