I am reading an amazing book right now – On Value and Values by Douglas K. Smith. It is the most lucid book on business that I have read since “Good to Great“. In fact, it is a great companion to “Good to Great” because it shows how that book falls short (although it never addresses Collins work directly).

The challenge with “On Value and Values” is that it does not lend itself well to sound bites and simple synopsis. There was an article in Fast Company that first got me interested in the book – it provides an adequate overview of the main thesis of the book, but you really need to read it. The fascinating thing about the book is that I find myself disagreeing with Smith at the start of several of the chapters and then seeing the power of his arguments by the end of the chapter. Smith like to break down our traditional beliefs about our world and then rebuild them with a more modern framework. It is a challenging book that really makes me question much of my work and life goals.

One of his central arguments is that modern corporations have chosen to focus on one single measure for success, known as “value”. Value is really the equivalent of money (or the ratio of money for material goods) and until recently “value” was just one measure of success among many other “values”. He tracks where this change came from and how we can start to instill values back into our lives – not by turning back the clock, but by accepting our current situation and looking forward.

It is on this point of “value” (particularly shareholder value) that he challenges the ideas in “Good to Great”. Collins admits at the beginning of his book that the only objective measure of “Great” companies in his book is stock price (“shareholder value”) over a 15 year period. Although this may be true, it relegates “Good to Great” as a treatise on how to fine tune value often to the exclusion (or at least benign neglect) of other values. Collins does address these issues in his last chapter, but for the most part our corporations (and we as individuals) do not address them.

“On Value and Values” is a challenging book. It asks corporate employees to carefully consider the many impact of their actions. It asks individuals who wish to turn back the clock on our purpose based society to consider accepting our new world. It is a welcome addition to my library.