In the previous post we looked at how Jim Collins’ analysis of companies that made a tangible progression from being good to great put themselves in a position to make those changes possible, and applied this logic to websites. In this post we’re going to look at how to achieve breakthrough in creating great websites once you’ve been through the necessary buildup.

Hedgehog concept

Collins describes at length what he calls a hedgehog, so don’t expect me to plagiarise the concept, just read the book. The main thrust of the concept is that businesses and — I propose — websites must focus on one big thing and be great at it; don’t dip into other peripheral activities. If the core activity is well-founded, this is where you’re going to achieve sustained success, not somewhere else.

How do you define what that one big thing should be? There are three questions you need to ask:

1. What you can be the best in the world at?
   And conversely, what you cannot be the best in the world at? This is not about a strategy or desire, but about an understanding of where your strengths and opportunities lie.
   I’ve previously criticised clients who declare in their tender documentation that they want to build a world-class website when they don’t have a world-class budget, but I’m reconsidering this position. The web is of course worldwide, so if you’re going to compete, you need to be providing something that your global competitors don’t. Now that may well be a local view: a local commercial service or information specific to a geography. But the salient point is that if the website isn’t attracting its target audience and at least challenging both its online and offline competition, then it’s not doing its job. Moreover, if it isn’t a website you can be proud of, you’re not doing your job.
   The web is still a relatively new economy, with all kinds of business models that are still in their infancy. There’s room for more world-class websites out there and yours should be one of them.
2. What drives your economic engine?
   In Collins’ world, this question involves a deep understanding of the economic models in your sector. In the web world, it translates to a relatively simple question: What makes your website worth visiting?
   Is it the information you provide, the way you collate information from multiple sources and present in one place, the brand your visitors buy into, a need to participate and engage with like-minded people? You have to be able to identify why the website is important to other people.
3. What are you deeply passionate about?
   Just as important as ensuring your web presence is important to other people is ensuring that it’s important to you and your organisation. If you’re not interested in producing content for your site, you shouldn’t bother. Just get rid of it. Don’t pad it out.
   Let the website reflect your organisation’s professional integrity. Let it be something where your teams can prove they’re the right people to be setting a vision. Let it reflect the outputs of heated debates you’ve had with your stakeholders about what the website should say about your organisation and how you want to be perceived. Show that you’ve encouraged input and that people believe in what’s on the web. Don’t let your website become straplines and mission statements.

You’ll find the big thing for your website where the answers to these three questions intersect. Put all your effort into this one thing and abandon everything else. Collins suggests having a “stop doing” list.

Culture of discipline

Content management systems were invented to cater for two main problems: providing editors with the means to publish content efficiently without needing to know about web technologies like HTML, and providing a means of controlling the content that is added by those editors, so that it conforms to predefined styles and patterns appropriate to the website.

This rigour is often welcome, allowing you to remain on brand, but you need a degree of entrepreneurship too. What does a site where all the content looks exactly the same say about your organisation? Perhaps that it’s completely process-driven and unlikely to ever dig its way out of a hole…

The system may be able to constrain your editors, but that doesn’t mean that it should. The editorial team should actually understand why those constraints are there: the benefits of consistency, or of an informed approach to information architecture and navigation, of being on-brand. Once they understand and agree with these principles, you won’t need to build systems to enforce standards: the editors will do this for themselves. You’ll be able to de-systematise the constraints as a culture of discipline pervades the way content is produced for the web. If someone then breaks the mould, you’ll know that they’re doing it for a reason, because the mould is too rigid or insufficient for emerging needs.

Just as the project sponsors and stakeholders needed to cast off empire-building and egotism, so the editorial team need to espouse the ideal of a common good. Their professional integrity will translate into a disciplined approach and your website will benefit as a consequence.

Technology accelerators

We haven’t even mentioned technology yet. Cultures rather than systems of discipline may prompt ideas of Enterprise 2.0, wikis and blogs. But Collins tells us that in his team’s analysis of business success, technology was never the primary cause of either success or decline. This is almost certainly true of websites.

So many times you’ll see organisations where the technology tail is wagging the business dog. Someone will tell you that they need a portal, or SOA, or ECM, or the semantic web. Why? What are you trying to achieve? Are you just trying to increase the IT budget?

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with these technologies, indeed they may be the best way of supporting the one big thing you’re trying to achieve. But they are absolutely not an end in themselves. Collins found that in businesses, technology could accelerate momentum, but could not create it. Tellingly, he also found that “Those who turn good into great are motivated by a deep creative urge and inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for its own sake. Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity, in contrast, are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.”

Only pick technologies that will help you deliver your one big idea. If you don’t need to deliver information in a single place aggregated live from diverse systems, why are you even considering portal technologies? If you don’t need to link documents, email and web content, how will ECM help you achieve your goals?

Conclusion

Good to Great is really based on just two concepts: teamwork and focus. You need to form a team to identify and challenge the problems that your website poses. You then need to focus obsessively on the one thing that is most important for fixing those problems, casting everything else aside. Collins doesn’t tell us that this is easy. But if you can follow his process, you’ll be well on your way to having a really great website.