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By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.

James C. Collins

The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake. The best people don’t need to be managed. Guided, taught, led-yes. But not tightly managed.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Mistake People
It’s what you do before you are in trouble, so that you can be strong when people most need you.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Needs People Strong
Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Firsts Management Mediocrity
Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Done Involved Involves Possibly Something
Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Decision Good Great Intentions
Consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Ideas Liability People Personality
Everytime you think of it, the idea in your head seems to get more vivid, filled in with more detail:
JAMES C. COLLINS

Every Time Filled Seems Think
If I were running a company today, I would have one priority above all others: to acquire as many of the best people as I could. I’d put off everything else to fill my bus. Because things are going to come back. My flywheel is going to start to turn.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Everything Many Organization Running
You absolutely must have the discipline not to hire until you find the right people.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Discipline People Right Until
I’ve never found an important decision made by a great organization that was made at a point of unanimity.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Decision Leadership Organization
The best CEOs in our research display tremendous ambition for their company combined with the stoic will to do whatever it takes, no matter how brutal (within the bounds of the company’s core values), to make the company great.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Humility Leadership Success
The main point is first get the right people on the bus (and wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it. The second key point is the degree of sheer rigor in people decisions in order to take a company from Good to Great.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Keys Order People Point Second
I can just let my curiosity wander unleashed.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Curiosity Unleashed Wander
You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Faith Perseverance Reality
The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Discipline Purpose
Level 5 leaders are differentiated from other levels of leaders in that they have a wonderful blend of personal humility combined with extraordinary professional will.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Humility Leadership

By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.

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By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.

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