What to build to get disciplined action fanatically consistent with the Hedgehog Concept.
Jim Collins's framework, from Good to Great, pp. 131 to 156.
Freedom and responsibility within a framework
Build a consistent system and give people leeway inside it.
Self-disciplined people
Fill the culture with people willing to go to extreme lengths, who rinse their cottage cheese.
A culture, not a tyrant
Avoid a disciplinarian who is the only source of discipline.
Fanatical consistency and a stop doing list
Stay within the three circles and unplug everything extraneous.
From chapter: Chapter 6 - A Culture of Discipline, pp. 131–156
A culture of discipline means self-disciplined people taking disciplined action fanatically consistent with the three circles. Abbott showed freedom and responsibility within a framework, with objectives set in concrete. Disciplined action without disciplined thought is a recipe for disaster, and a tyrannical disciplinarian is not a culture of discipline: the unsustained comparisons rose and fell with their Level 4 leaders. The most important discipline is saying no to opportunities outside the three circles, and the good-to-great companies used stop doing lists and budgets that decide which arenas to fund fully or not at all.
