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Not all time in life is equal. How many opportunities do you get to talk about what your life is going to add up to with people thinking about the same question?

James C. Collins

Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Decision Good Great Intentions
The only way to make any company visionary is through a long-term commitment to an eternal process of building the organization to preserve the core and stimulate progress.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Building Eternal Organisation Process Stimulate
By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Average Definitions Good Great
Discipline is consistency of action.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Action Consistency Discipline
To have a Welch-caliber C.E.O. is impressive.To have a century of Welch-Caliber C.E.O.’s all grown from the inside – well, that is one key reason why G.E. is a visionary company.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Keys Reason Why Vision
The secret to a successful retirement is to find your retirement sweet spot. The sweet spot is where your passions, what you do best, and what people will pay you to do overlap.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Passion Retirement Sweet
In a truly great company profits and cash flow become like blood and water to a healthy body: They are absolutely essential for life but they are not the very point of life
JAMES C. COLLINS

Blood Business Responsibility
In an ironic twist, I now see Good to Great not as a sequel to Built to Last, but more of a prequel. Good to Great is about how to turn a good organization into one that produces sustained great results.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Ironic Lasts Organization
A visionary company doesn’t simply balance between idealism and profitability: it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Balance Change Vision
It occurs to me,Jim,that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don’t you invest more time being interested?” Collin’s advice from John Gardner that he took to heart.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Advice Heart Interesting
We learned that a former prisoner of war had more to teach us about what it takes to find a path to greatness than most books on corporate strategy.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Book Corporate Greatness Strategy War
Genius of AND. Embrace both extremes on a number of dimensions at the same time. Instead of choosing a OR B, figure out how to have A AND B-purpose AND profit, continuity AND change, freedom AND responsibility, etc.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Numbers Responsibility
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
First figure out your partners, then figure out what ideas to pursue. The most important thing isn’t the market you target, the product you develop or the financing, but the founding team.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Ideas Important Product Team
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
If you have a charismatic cause you don’t need to be a charismatic leader.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Causes Leader Needs

Not all time in life is equal. How many opportunities do you get to talk about what your life is going to add up to with people thinking about the same question?

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Not all time in life is equal. How many opportunities do you get to talk about what your life is going to add up to with people thinking about the same question?

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