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| Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big | 
 enlarge | Author: Bo Burlingham
Publisher: Portfolio Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $3.55
You Save: $11.40 (76%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (38 reviews)
Sales Rank: 24348
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: Updated
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 268
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 1591841496
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.409
EAN: 9781591841494
ASIN: 1591841496
Publication Date: March 27, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
It?s an axiom of business that great companies grow their revenues and profits year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, a small number of companies have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Goals like being great at what they do . . . creating a great place to work . . . providing great customer service . . . making great contributions to their communities . . . and finding great ways to lead their lives. In Small Giants, veteran journalist Bo Burlingham takes us deep inside fourteen remarkable companies that have chosen to march to their own drummer. They include Anchor Brewing, the original microbrewer; CitiStorage Inc., the premier independent records-storage business; Clif Bar & Co., maker of organic energy bars and other nutrition foods; Righteous Babe Records, the record company founded by singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco; Union Square Hospitality Group, the company of restaurateur Danny Meyer; and Zingerman?s Community of Businesses, including the world-famous Zingerman?s Deli of Ann Arbor. Burlingham shows how the leaders of these small giants recognized the full range of choices they had about the type of company they could create. And he shows how we can all benefit by questioning the usual definitions of business success. In his new afterward, Burlingham reflects on the similarities and learning lessons from the small giants he covers in the book. Small Giants is a finalist for the Financial Times / Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award
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| Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...
 Great Case Stuides for Building a Great Company May 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Bo Burlingham has done a great job assembling a group of companies that shunned the normally accepted path of explosive growth in order to truly be great at what they do. The variety of companies and industries profiled are helpful for CEOs of any size firm in nearly any vertical to take nuggets of wisdom from each and piece together focus areas for transforming and "culturalizing" their business. While not a recipe for success, "Small Giants" instead provides useful insights that can be used as a catalyst for change in an organization.
 Awful book !!! March 25, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
Small business owners may associate themselves with the stories in this book but that is all who should read this book. It is not for general reading. One very shameful point I noticed in this book is the special mention when the business owner was a Jew. He specifically mentions it if not obvious from the name of the business owner (in the case he/she happens to be a Jew). Shame.
 What did I read? March 25, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I did not understand why I was reading this book when I was reading it. And after finishing it I do not know if I learned anything from this book. Some small business owners may see themselves in this book, but that is it. This book just confirms the fact that "one size does not fit all". Success is so subjective. Different subjects have taken different approach and no reason was given as to why that was the best approach. Approach was solely the pick of the business owner.
This book is a waste of time. I read it just because it came free from Zecco. The book has no flow or continuity. It looks like author is just trying to merge different stories into a book format. It would have been better if this book was in a case study format.
 Defining Good Growth February 19, 2008
Small Giants is a set of stories about a selected group of outstanding companies that have had the option of very fast growth, but instead have chosen to be great rather than as big as possible. Each company described, has defined their own meaning of greatness.
Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, MI was determined to serve the best sandwiches known to man. By many accounts he achieved that goal. So much so, that the opportunities to expand seemed countless. Nevertheless, Ari applied the brakes. With a manageable 7 locations he could say "I look forward to coming to work even more now than I did in the beginning. I'm having more fun and I'm more at peace with the realities of life. Success means you're going to have better problems. I'm very happy with the problems I have now."
Ari and others in the book have learned to say no to too much growth. The problem is that many others haven't. Even if the entrepreneur knows his team and resources can't handle the growth, he plunges forth anyway. For someone that has struggled their whole career to grow the business and add customers, turning down business feels immoral; wrong on many levels.
Jay Golz of Artist Frame Service struggled with this. "For me, it was having to do as much as I could. I was always worried. Am I missing an opportunity here? Am I leaving money on the table? How do you turn that off? How do you keep the success bug from becoming the success disease?" Like many driven entrepreneurs, Golz suffered from a major disability, his own blindness to what he had accomplished.
As Golz hit 40, he began to understand better the impact he had on his employees and clients' lives. His mission turned from fully leveraging all opportunities, to quality of life for his team and his family. He no longer had to chase Gates and Dell.
Fritz Maytag of Anchor Brewing "got it" from the beginning. Perhaps it was because of watching his family in the famed appliance company. He consciously strived to keep his headcount as low as possible. He wanted a culture "where everyone knows they're all interrelated and where, as far as possible, everybody is in charge, and nobody is looking over anyone's shoulder and there are no time clocks."
The themes of success, balance, quality of life, and transcendent values, echo though all of these small giants. Entrepreneurs who discover that people trump profits, and that the profits come anyway when the mission is on target. Growth is good, but not always and at all costs. Good growth is always good. Small Giants helps define what good growth really is.
Hybridizing Non-profit and For-profit Goals January 20, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
One of the most fascinating things about Bo Burlingham's book is that it presents a more complete look at one of the most popular human organizational structures: the private corporation. It's within the context of the private, closely-held company that we appear to be experiencing a trend of hybridization between non-profit and for-profit goals. This book will provide you with many examples of the well-balanced private corporation, seeking to identify their own metrics for success based on their own personal beliefs.
It is this reconciliation of work and personal values that is a common theme for Burlingham - these private companies are the artistic creations of their founders, and an inspiration to entrepreneurs who hope to maintain their creative freedom. The significance of small, entrepreneurial companies and their non-profit activities is simply that it allows society to be governed and aided from the bottom-up, by great leaders who are acting on their very best nature. The companies here give meaning to their employees' lives, and foster a genuine work environment, while at the same time projecting their values into the community.
In economics, supply and demand is everything, but these ideas have been interpreted to be wholly significant only to goods and services that someone can profit from financially. In this far more flexible and personalized knowledge economy the private freedom to do good, and to do so by one's own definition, represents a new and wonderful power. As the companies in Small Giants exemplify, this power is robbed by investment bankers, shareholders, and advisors who have a one-dimensional definition of success, and an interest in growth for growth's sake.
With my own company, I plan to spend an enormous amount of up-front effort clarifying the kind of contribution I'd like to make, and ultimately turn SelfReliant into the same sort of "small giant" Burlingham's promoting. Great companies should always represent a point of view and I can only hope mine will be as compelling as those represented in Small Giants.
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