Corante's Mary Schmidt nails it again with her "From Good To Great" post yesterday:

As documented in Jim Collins’ research, one of the key factors of a “good to a great” company is the ability to look at the brutal facts. ”... You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts.”

Yep. Spend enough time hanging out in boardrooms in most parts of the world, and you'll find that in far too many instances the people whose responsibility it is to expose, face and address the brutal facts either aren't very good at it, or simply choose not to.

What it comes down to is this: You have to a) surround yourself with people who aren't afraid to tell you when your baby's ugly, and b) give them the authority to do so. Great companies have learned to successfully do this on their own. Companies on their way to being great hire consultants, advisors and coaches to come in and do this for them. The trick is to hire the real thing: experts with not only the insight and knowledge necessary to get the job done, but also the confidence and integrity that will allow them to give their clients the kinds of answers they may not initially want to hear.

The bottom line is that facing the brutal facts is vital to any business. Call it a daily gut check. A self-diagnostic. Call it whatever you will... if you want to become a great company, if you want your work to actually mean something and be remembered, - and if you expect to still be in business ten years from now - it isn't something you can opt to bypass. There is absolutely no room for denial in business. None. Reality doesn't go away just because you choose to ignore it. If you can't face it head on, you aren't cut out to be a business leader. Sorry. Brutal facts are indeed... brutal.

The reality is that a whole lot of people sitting in cushy corner offices simply aren't cut out to be there. It has nothing to do with education or pedigree. It has to do with things like sense of purpose, responsibility, vision, character, and even intellectual curiosity.

The good news is that most of these folks are perfectly capable of becoming great leaders... But the first step in the transformation process is for them to realize that they aren't there yet.

Easier said than done.

Check out Jim Collins' piece here for more great insight on the subject.

Next, drop by Johnnie Moore's post on "getting back in the box" (inspired by Marc Babej and Douglas Rushkoff). Brilliant, brilliant observations on the pitfalls of "the business of business", and the proliferation of detached professional managers. Here are a few little slivers of goodness:

"The idea that resonates most for me is Rushkoff's attack on the "business of business". This is the popular idea that what matters is not expertise in, or passion for, a particular product or service; instead what gets popularised is the notion of genius business leaders who can flit from one industry to another, without much real interest in what industry does. The result: organisations that get distracted with gimmicks instead of putting their energies into creating good products. (This ties in to Jim Collins' observation, in Good to Great, that truly great companies did not have superstar leaders imported from afar; they usually had humbler leaders steeped in the business.) (...) Managers who are disconnected from their products will necessarily care more about their own careers than the companies they are supposedly leading, too. Hell, theyre going to flip jobs, anyway. Its become a generic position."

Bingo. (And yeah, Jim Collins is pretty popular with the Corante crowd this week.)

I don't want to make any generalizations here, but for every smart, infected, passionate business leader I have met or had the pleasure to work with, there was at least one other who was anything but. And watching the latter drag their companies' potential down into oblivion always breaks my heart.

Without a doubt, when it comes to busines, I'll take passion over "experience" any day. Someone with passion is always eager to learn and make things better.

Business leaders and managers, it's time to start taking notes. Your career, your legacy, your future - and the future of all of the people who depend on you to be truly great - may very well depend on it.