Jim Collins Talks to Chinese CEOs About Leadership

Introduction

    I met Jim Collins in 2001, at the FORTUNE Global Forum in Washington, D.C., where he gave an animated, inspired, 40-minute presentation, without a single note and without standing still, based on the findings from his newly published book. "Good to Great" was just starting out on its path to becoming the best-selling hard cover business book in history.

    Earlier this year, the venue for our second meeting and this interview was Collins' office in Boulder, Colorado. Known as The ChimpWorks LLC, it functions as the headquarters for his team of researchers (fondly known as The Chimps) whose exceptional analytics have underpinned his work as an author. Boulder is Collins' home town and The ChimpWorks is located in a historic building within walking distance of his home, in the neighborhood where he grew up.

    (To watch the video of this interview and additional parts of the interview not published, click here)

    His colleagues were extremely friendly and helpful, but there was no mistaking the message that Collins was being unusually generous in granting FORTUNE China a four-hour interview spread over two days, especially since he was in "monk mode" as he calls it, deeply engaged in writing his next book. In this mode, he rarely even comes to the office, preferring instead to write in the quiet of his home office.

    The 2001 Global Forum was the first time I'd seen Collins speak. He is one of the best public speakers I've heard, and there's something about his message that is simultaneously inspiring and worrying. Inspiring because he's so passionate about the lessons and learnings of his work, yet worrying because you're easily persuaded that failure to embrace that learning could have dire consequences for you and your organization.

    After his presentation, I approached Collins at the podium, introduced myself, and expressed an interest in having a future conversation about his work, for the benefit of China's business leaders. He expressed a keen interest, in principle. His research-driven writing is based largely on in-depth study of massive amounts of data about the history and results of FORTUNE 500 companies over a long span of time, which raises interesting questions about its applicability across cultures and geographies, including China.

    Nearly a decade later, in 2009, it struck me that the time was ripe for that conversation, for several reasons.

    On the one hand, "Good to Great" has been a remarkably successful business book around the world, including its Chinese language edition, which suggests that its learnings have resonance, staying power, widespread appeal and relevance. In fact the book has been such a runaway success in China compared to many other business books that it raises the question about what it is about Collins' message that seems to strike such a special chord among Chinese readers.

    I wondered if the great popularity of Jim Collins in China might be due in part to his unique combination of the empirical and the inspirational. The empirical approach is persuasive, because it is based on extensive research, relying on proven facts and results. The inspirational aspect appeals because the enormous changes in China during these past thirty years have posed great challenges to a clear sense of values and direction. This is of course true in the U.S. as well, but the pace of change in China has been nothing short of phenomenal.

    At the same time, confidence in U.S. companies as management role models took a severe hit in China and many other countries as the 2009 financial crisis unfolded and spread around the globe. Collins' data is based on U.S. companies, so it's timely to revisit the question of whether the original lessons are still as applicable as they were once perceived to be.

    Finally, since the publication of "Good to Great" in 2001, the number of mainland Chinese companies on the FORTUNE Global 500 list has skyrocketed from 10 to 42. During the same time, the number of Chinese companies listed on China's stock exchanges has grown by some 60% to nearly 2,000; and increasing numbers of Chinese companies are talking about and actually going global -- all signs of the phenomenal growth of China's corporate sector during this period.

    Has this impressive growth in scale, size and reach reduced the need for the kind of management wisdom which emanates from Collins' work, or further underlined the demand for it?

    What better time than now to explore the linkages and lessons of Collins' writing to the Chinese business juggernaut?

    Meanwhile, Collins wrote another important, if smaller, business book: "How the Mighty Fall." Published in 2009, it examines how and why some great companies enter into periods of steep decline, while comparable companies do not.

    "How the Mighty Fall" was something of an unplanned birth, coming in the middle of a major, six-year book project exploring the new turbulence which defines global markets, slated for publication in late 2011. It's worth noting that although "How the Mighty Fall" was published in the midst of the 2009 financial crisis, it was written beforehand and not with any specific reference to the crisis; yet its lessons about why great companies can falter were amply illustrated during the crisis. In hindsight it seems a remarkably prescient and timely piece of writing.

    So, my journey from Hong Kong to Boulder, many months in the planning, was aimed at seeking Jim Collins' insights on the relevance of his research and writing to the fast-growing Chinese corporate universe, especially in the aftermath of the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression. Were we, after all, entering a paradigm shift of monumental proportions which would somehow alter some of the basic management ground rules, or were we simply in the midst of a much worse-than-usual market adjustment which does not change any of the fundamentals?

    I hoped to be able to draw him out on his views on a variety of issues facing leaders of Chinese companies -- leadership, succession planning, business education, core values, etc. -- despite his data-driven style and usual reluctance to comment on questions outside the scope of his research.

    I also hoped to be able to gain insights into Jim Collins the man, because well-known as his writing are in China, his private life is exactly that. Many other widely respected international management gurus have been to China; Collins has been too busy writing books and doesn't travel much, so he has yet to make his first visit. Many of his Chinese fans want to know more about him.

    What, I wondered, drives this man, whose life work during these past 20 years has produced three major management books, several lesser known ones, with another major work in the pipeline. I had seen in his 2001 presentation that he speaks of his subject matter with intense passion. Where, I wondered, did that stem from, and how does he sustain it?

    So, with a head full of questions and an empty notebook I flew from Hong Kong to Chicago, Chicago to Denver, and rented a car for the easy 45-minute drive from Denver to Boulder, a picturesque, laid-back university town of roughly 200,000 people with clear skies above and quiet streets where runners, bicyclists, kayaks and dog-walkers seem to outnumber passenger vehicles.