The second irritating habit is that of naming model firms: while I agree with the author that the firms may not be successful because of the supposed habit, there is one good writing reason why you should use such an approach.
Because leading with an example is more powerful than a vague statement. The average reader will understand better a story like "John at Ford faced the challenge of flat tires and did ..." than some abstract problem description.
It can also backfire on you. The much-hyped "Good to Great" names several model firms as great that are now bankrupt. Would you buy that book now? I certainly won't.
Sure. As long as you understand that the example was one data point in time. I think of it as: "in 1983, John had problem X and found creative solution Y, which worked". It doesn't mean that John's company will be immune forever of business failures. I just try to learn from people's creative ways to approach problems and find smart solutions.
It helps that the same happened in my previous startup. When we were very small, I think we did a couple of great things. Some of those could be used in a business book as examples a smart company.
But a few years later, and 5X more employees, we were quite messed up. Whatever wisdom we had as a small team didn't carry over to the larger organization (I guess you could use this example in reverse in another business book :-)
The core issue at hand is that the authors don't have any real insight into these companies. The article addresses this issue - the authors are taking successful companies and overgeneralizing the specifics to fit the theme of their book.
Not true. While they may be broad, the authors still found common traits of the most historically successful companies. Collins wrote the follow-up "How the Mighty Fall" to then explain why/how they were unable to remain "Built to Last".
The failure of companies mentioned in Good to Great does not necessarily mean Good to Great was wrong; it's possible those companies were no longer following what made them great in the past.
The 'common traits' tend to be awfully vague, and have little predictive value. This is what's important: anyone can write a book in hindsight and extol the virtues of the latest fads, but if they were able to take their traits and make predictions based on them, that would be a little bit more serious than writing another 'management guru' book after the firms have failed.
Because leading with an example is more powerful than a vague statement. The average reader will understand better a story like "John at Ford faced the challenge of flat tires and did ..." than some abstract problem description.