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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

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

Decision Good Great Intentions
If you have more than three priorities then you don’t have any.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Consciousness Priorities Three
The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Achieve People Way
Our findings do not represent a quick fix, or the next fashion statement in a long string of management fads, or the next buzzword of the day, or a new ‘program’ to introduce. No!
JAMES C. COLLINS

Commitment Fashion Organization
The challenge is not just to build a company that can endure; but to build one that is worthy of enduring.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Challenges Endure Entrepreneurs
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
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
A great company will have many once-in-a-liftetime opportunities.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Company Great Opportunity
There is a sense of exhilaration that comes from facing head-on the hard truths and saying, “We will never give up. We will never capitulate. It might take a long time, but we will find a way to prevail.”
JAMES C. COLLINS

Giving Life Motivational
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
Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Company Great Markets People Technology
Those who turn good organizations into great organizations are motivated by a deep creative urge and an inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for its own sake.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Leadership Motivation Organization
Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Built Company Enduring Great Results
The inner experience of fallure is totally different than failure. Going to fallure means 100% commitment – you leave nothing in reserve, no mental or physical resource untapped, you never give yourself a psychological out.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Letting Go Mean Pain
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
The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Discipline Purpose

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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