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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

Discipline is consistency of action.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Action Consistency Discipline
Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Blood Oxygen Water
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
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
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
People are not your most important asset….the right people are.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Good Great Important People
Whether you prevail or fail depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Failing Prevail World
…the question, Why try for greatness? would seem almost tautological. If you’re doing something you care that much about, and you believe in its purpose deeply enough, then it is impossible to imagine not trying to make it great. It’s just a given.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Believe Business Greatness
Companies that change best over time know first and foremost what should not change.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Company Firsts Should
A visionary company doesn’t simply balance between preserving a tightly held core ideology and stimulating vigorous change and movement; it does both to an extreme.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Change Extreme Stimulating Visionary
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
Throw leaders into an extreme environment, and it will separate the stark differences between greatness and mediocrity.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Differences Greatness Leader
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
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
We must reject the idea… Well-intentioned, but dead wrong… That the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become “more like a business.” Most businesses… Like most of anything else in life… Fall somewhere between mediocre and good.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Fall Greatness

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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