The E.A. Sween Company, based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, makes more than 70 million sandwiches each year. If you’ve ever grabbed a quick bite from a convenience store cooler, perhaps a San Luis burrito, a Market Sandwich or Deli Express, you’ve likely tasted one. Like many successful private companies with staying power, E.A. Sween started from humble beginnings. In the late 1950s, Earl Sween answered an ad in The Wall Street Journal for a Stewart Sandwich franchise. Over the years, and across three generations of family leadership, the company grew from a single route to a national foodservice operation with more than $200 million in annual revenue.
In an industry where margins are tight, and shelf space is fiercely contested, that kind of growth requires more than operational efficiency. At E.A. Sween, the difference shows in how the company and its board approach culture, leadership and long-term focus. Indeed, the company’s stated purpose and values could have been lifted directly from Jim Collins’ Good to Great: “We respect each other, trust each other, believe in honesty and expect the same in return. We make changes required to grow while generating a fair profit.”
Jim Collins’ Good to Great may have been written for corporate managers nearly 25 years ago, but its insights remain highly relevant today. While Collins focused on public companies and executive leadership, the principles he uncovered are universal, and deserve thoughtful application in the boardroom, especially in private companies.
Private boards operate with unique advantages. Unburdened by the short-term pressures of earnings reports or activist shareholders, they have the space to prioritize long-term performance. Yet, too many remain passive or narrowly focused on compliance. They fulfill their duties without asking how they might help their companies rise. The result is competent oversight at the cost of missed opportunities. Moving from good to great requires more than good intentions. It demands board leadership that is willing to question assumptions, engage deeply in strategy and culture, and remain focused on what drives lasting success.
One of the striking features of E.A. Sween’s success is its ability to maintain focus while evolving. The company has expanded beyond its original routes and products into new markets and facilities, including a major investment in a Greenwood County, S.C., manufacturing center. Throughout this growth, it has retained its identity as a family-owned business, now led by Tom H. Sween, the founder’s grandson, but it hasn’t operated like a family-run club. Instead, the company has adopted formal governance structures that are typical of larger, more complex organizations.
Unlike many private companies that frequently have boards comprised primarily of family, relatives or close personal friends, E.A. Sween has a fiduciary board with independent directors, including leaders from industries such as food, logistics and private equity. These board members bring outside perspectives and accountability beyond what many private companies implement. According to public statements by Tom H. Sween, the board plays a central role in long-range planning, strategic investment decisions and leadership development.
That level of engagement is not accidental. It’s consistent with the disciplined leadership Jim Collins identified in his Good to Great research. Great companies, he found, don’t rely solely on visionary founders or charismatic CEOs. They are guided by what he called “Level 5 leaders.” They blend personal humility with professional will and build cultures where truth is heard. Difficult decisions are made early rather than late. For private boards, the temptation is often to preserve harmony or defer too much to management, especially in companies with strong founder legacies or tight-knit family ownership. But the leap from good to great demands more. It requires directors willing to confront uncomfortable truths, ask hard questions and challenge the company to clarify what it can be best at.
That starts with creating a climate where reality isn’t smoothed over. In Collins’ terms, confronting brutal facts is foundational. Boards that want to help their companies ascend must foster an environment where data is trusted, dissent is welcomed and denial isn’t tolerated. When boards are insulated from frontline insight — or worse, when they discourage it — they rob the organization of the candor it needs to adapt and improve. At E.A. Sween, this shows up in the company’s operational transparency and emphasis on measurable results. According to publicly shared materials, the board regularly reviews key performance indicators tied not just to financials, but also to safety, product quality and employee engagement. This kind of structure doesn’t guarantee greatness, but it creates the conditions for it – and that’s the point. As Collins noted, good is the enemy of great, not because good companies fail, but because they succeed just enough to avoid pushing harder.
Great companies don’t just confront reality; they also develop intense clarity about what they should be doing and, just as importantly, what they shouldn’t. Collins called this “the Hedgehog Concept”: the intersection of three truths — what you can be the best in the world at, what drives your economic engine and what you are deeply passionate about. At public companies, these elements often emerge through years of performance data, analyst scrutiny and competitive benchmarking. Private companies, especially those growing or evolving rapidly, may not have the same volume of external pressure. That puts greater responsibility on boards to ensure strategic focus isn’t lost in the noise.
Private company boards often face “opportunity creep,” where good ideas compete with great ones and legacy offerings linger simply because no one wants to kill them off. The most effective boards push companies to stay anchored in their core strengths and embrace both change and innovation. It means channeling new ideas through a disciplined lens. At E.A. Sween, that clarity shows in its focus on convenience food, fast logistics and high-volume production. While other companies have tried to expand into unrelated categories, E.A. Sween has focused on operational excellence in its niche. It has not tried to be the next Whole Foods or a fast-casual trendsetter. It knows what it is and what it is not.
Boards that want to foster this clarity do not need to build the Hedgehog Concept from scratch. They can start by asking three simple questions in every strategy discussion:
- Does this play to our unique strengths?
- Does it improve our long-term economic model?
- Does it align with what motivates our people?
It may seem basic, but the discipline to ask these questions consistently is rare. Many boards are content to greenlight interesting or incremental initiatives without testing whether they align with the company’s core focus. That lack of discipline can be costly, draining resources, scattering attention and diluting performance.
When a board gets this right, it becomes a filter rather than just a forum. It helps management prioritize, allocate capital more effectively and walk away from distractions. That is not overstepping; it is stewardship. And it is a central ingredient in moving from a good company to a great one.
One of the most overlooked advantages of a private company board is the ability to shape culture deliberately and over time. While public companies often struggle to embed values amid quarterly pressures and executive churn, private boards can directly reinforce the behaviors, language and leadership mindsets that support greatness.
At E.A. Sween, culture isn’t tacked onto a mission statement – it’s operationalized. A commitment to “constructive straight talk” and “thinking before doing” is embedded in its values and decision-making rhythm. Those aren’t just HR slogans, they’re governance principles in disguise, and they reflect the kind of cultural clarity Collins observed in companies that leaped from good to great. These companies didn’t just have values. They had cultures that supported discipline, honesty and performance at every level.
Boards can help shape that, not by writing value statements, but by consistently modeling the same behaviors: candid dialogue, clear priorities and a refusal to look away from hard truths. In Collins’ language, they confront brutal facts while maintaining faith in the mission. They push for clarity of purpose and act as stewards of culture. That’s the difference between a board that preserves momentum and one that creates it. It’s easy to assume that culture “just happens” in private companies, especially when families or founders are still involved. Greatness demands more than tradition, however. It demands intentionality. Boards are uniquely positioned to hold the line, ask questions and ensure a company’s stated values are more than posters on a wall.
Private company boards that want to lead their organizations from good to great don’t just oversee, they embed the habits of greatness in everything they touch. What sets a company like E.A. Sween apart may not be its size or long history alone, but the seriousness with which it approaches governance. When Tom H. Sween was named CEO in 2017, it wasn’t just a family decision. The board approved the move based on a formal recommendation from his predecessor, signaling succession would be treated as a business decision, not a birthright. That level of discipline is still rare among private companies, where boards are often composed of family members or long-time insiders. But it reflects the kind of rigor Collins identified in the companies that leapt past good and became great.
For private company boards, greatness is a choice. It doesn’t depend on outside investors, a looming crisis or a mandate from regulators. It begins with leadership from within: the discipline to confront hard truths, challenge assumptions and raise expectations. That’s how private boards stop checking boxes, start creating lasting value and stay in business for generations.