Book pic: Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big

The Washington Post writes about Small Giants, “Bo Burlingham’s done for private companies what Jim Collins did for public companies in Good to Great.” Bo Burlingham has succeeded in drawing a blueprint for businesses that choose to be great instead of big.

One of Burlingham’s favorite leadership concepts is called “The Mona Lisa Effect.” In a wonderful story about the ups and downs of Buffalo, New York, an underdog city that was revitalized by a quirky local business, Burlingham asserts that all great companies are rooted in their communities. Their communities shape them, and they shape their communities.

This quality is illusive and hard to define, says Burlingham, who is also the editor of Inc. Magazine, but it’s like the Mona Lisa. If the painting were framed in a different way, hung in a different way and lit in another way, it wouldn’t be the same work of art. Likewise, great businesses flourish in a particular “context” in a particular way. Take them out of the context and they cease to be great.

Walmart or even Whole Foods, according to Burlingham, can’t be great because they’re not rooted in their communities. He cites other companies that are synonymous with their cities, Zingerman’s and Ann Arbor, Anchor Brewing and San Francisco, ECCO and Boise, and O.C. Tanner and Salt Lake City.
This suggests great things about family businesses. Most family firms are deeply rooted in their communities, especially in our region!

Sum and substance: Don’t forget that Bo Burlingham is coming to the Center for Family Business on September 23rd for our Fifteenth-Year Celebration. His Small Giants is about you!