Good proposition, poor argument

Jim Collins starts the book with an excellent question of why some companies leap from good to great, and gives a clear definition of greatness. Jim tries to uncover the general principle underlying the leap from good to great regardless of industries. Jim finds the great companies from the public available data and thus well defines the subject the book studies.

The overarching argument in the book is that a combination of passion, the best expertise, and economics is necessary condition for producing great companies. The dynamics of the leap contains the right vision and self-disciplined execution. Most of the arguments are probably talked about in depth by other business books.

The reason I feel the book is not "greatly" written is that many key terms are not well defined. For example, the author argues that technology only accelerates the leap from good to great. However, what does "accelerate" means in business development? What if there is no such technology? If the answer is the leap will not happen without the technology, then technology should also be part of the answer rather than simple "catalyst".

Another quite confusing term is "passion". Authors on business like to talk about passion. But it seems that no author is interested in defining passion. My personal thought is that passion is a dynamic feeling. It's not stable, and it changes in time. I really want to how we can proactively measure "passion". I don't like to reversely infer passion from the results.

My suggestion for reading the book is just scan and put more attention to the endings where Jim summaries the contents of the book.