August 1996 was a seminal month in sports history. Tiger Woods became a professional golfer, and he started out like no golfer ever had, quickly winning three tournaments and being named Rookie of the Year. Things didn’t slow down for Tiger during 1997, which included his 12-stroke win at golf’s most prestigious event, The Masters, and ranking as the number one golfer in the world. 

 So the golf world was shocked at the end of 1997 when Tiger announced he was deconstructing his technique to develop a new golf swing. Why would the top golfer in the world want to change how he became the best? Tiger didn’t want to be good; he wanted to be great, and great he became. 

The next few years after integrating his new swing were extraordinary for Tiger and included 14 more major tournament wins. If not for a 2009 meltdown in his personal life, Tiger would almost certainly have won more major tournaments than any golfer ever, and left records no one would touch. Tiger understood the difference between good and great. 

In Jim Collins’ 2001 seminal book Good to Great, he helped us realize that good is the enemy of great. If we accept being good, we will never be great. 

Below are several ways leaders settle for being good when they could be great.

Stuck in the Old Way of Doing Things

The Blockbuster story is classic. Thinking that everyone would always want to come into a store and select their movies, Blockbuster executives turned down a chance to buy Netflix for $50 million, literally laughing Netflix founder Reed Hastings out of the room. Today, Blockbuster is out of business, and Netflix has a market capitalization of more than $500 billion. Those Blockbuster executives were stuck in the old way of doing things, and it cost them the company. 

Thankfully for the New York Times, they have largely adapted to the new digital world, but being stuck in the old ways of doing things almost put this iconic brand out of business. The Times executives resisted change, resulting in slow investment in digital technologies. While the newspaper lost an opportunity to lead in digital news, and that lost opportunity cost them a lot of money, fortunately, it did eventually adjust to the new environment and now has over ten million subscribers to its digital paper. 

Great leaders don’t get stuck in the old way of doing things.

Focusing on the Short-Term 

In 2005, Myspace had a huge lead on the fledgling startup Facebook, even selling to a new owner for $580 million, which was then considered a huge sum for a digital company. However, instead of investing in platform infrastructure, product design and the user experience, the new owners of Myspace felt pressure to immediately optimize monetization of their investment, and that was a big mistake. A short-term focus by the Myspace executives gave Facebook space to develop a better product and cost the owners of Myspace hundreds of billions of dollars.

Great leaders focus on the long run. 

Lack of Vision

In 1975, Kodak invented a new product that would transform the world of photography. Kodak invented the digital camera. However, a lack of vision related to what digital photography would become resulted in the company working hard to protect its core business from disruption, even from itself, instead of capitalizing on a huge asset. The Kodak executives were smart folks; they just lacked vision. 

In 2007, Nokia dominated the cell phone market, commanding over 40% market share and generating tremendous cash flow. They had the resources, but not the vision, to develop a smartphone like Apple’s iPhone. Once smartphones hit the market, Nokia’s market share lead quickly diminished before it was eventually acquired by Microsoft and then shuttered out of business. Nokia executives had driven tremendous market share and brand equity, but a lack of vision cost them everything. 

For decades, Sears and its ubiquitous catalogue was the clear leader in the U.S. retail market. Sears had the resources to develop an early online shopping platform, but instead focused on cost-cutting and divestiture, even selling its highly profitable financial services firm Dean Witter. Sears had the resources and brand awareness to develop an online shopping platform that could be generating billions of dollars for them today, but they lacked vision and went out of business.

Great leaders have vision.

Risk Taking

Canon’s story is like Kodak’s. Once the point-and-shoot camera market leader, Canon decided to play it safe when smartphone cameras became common, doubling down on traditional cameras. Unlike Sony and Samsung, who became leaders in providing optical technology for smartphones, Canon thought they were avoiding risk when they actually were taking on an even bigger risk than disrupting their business would have been. The Canon team had the smarts to evolve, but not a willingness to take the risk. 

Nintendo’s risk aversion also resulted in a significant negative impact to its company. Nintendo was very slow to embrace online gaming, losing a significant market edge. Others, such as Sony, Microsoft, and Niantic invested in online and mobile gaming, reaping significant rewards while Nintendo played it safe. Nintendo is still around, but a shell of what it could have been.

Great leaders understand that appropriate risk-taking is the path to great rewards.

The common thread of all these examples is that the organizations were all led by good leaders, often very smart folks. However, being just good and smart wasn’t enough and led to their downfall.

A Positive Example

On the other hand, Domino’s Pizza provides us with an example of great leadership. When its new CEO, Patrick Doyle, took over in 2010, he immediately transformed the company. He admitted their product was bad, a bold move, and worked to improve it. He also invested in technology and delivery infrastructure. His moves resulted in creating more than $10 billion of value for the organization, which today is a leader in tech-enabled food delivery. 

The difference between being a good leader and a great leader is significant. Great leaders aren’t stuck in the old or current way of doing things. Instead, they have a great long-term vision and are willing to take appropriate risks. 

Great leaders positively impact the lives of people all around them. 

Don’t be good, be great!

Bill Yeargin is President/CEO of Correct Craft and author of six books including the best seller Education of a CEO.