Scaling up Excellence Getting to More Without Settling for Less

In Scaling Up Excellence, bestselling author Robert Sutton and his Stanford colleague Huggy Rao explore a critical challenge faced by every organization: how to scale up effectively, rapidly, and sustainably. Over the past decade, Sutton and Rao have studied what it takes to cultivate pockets of exceptional performance, spread them across an organization, and continuously improve work practices. Drawing on case studies, insider accounts, and academic research from a variety of industries—ranging from startups to healthcare—they identify the key challenges organizations face when scaling.

The authors delve into the difficult choices between fostering individualized, localized approaches (which they refer to as "Buddhism") versus replicating standardized practices across the board ("Catholicism"). They reveal how top leaders and teams instill the right mindsets in their people without diluting the core values that drive successful growth. Sutton and Rao also highlight the principles that help organizations spread excellence and how to root out toxic behaviors that can undermine success. This book is an essential guide for leaders looking to scale their programs or organizations without losing the elements that made them great in the first place.

Scaling Up Excellence is the first major business book devoted to this universal and vexing challenge. It is destined to become the standard bearer in the field.