Jim Collins book Built to Last showed how great companies triumph over time and have long-term sustained performance built into the DNA of their company. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good, mediocre or even bad companies achieve greatness that lasts? Can companies defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity into long-term superiority? If so, are there unique characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great? Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years. The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness — why some companies make the leap and others don’t. The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice.