black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
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
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
You not only want to win a gold medal at the Olympics, you not only can see yourself standing there on the podium, but you can also feel the goose bumps as your national anthem is played; the tears are in your eyes. (That’s how real a dream can be and should be)
JAMES C. COLLINS

Anthem Olympic Played Podium Standing
Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity…are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Marketing Mediocrity Motivated
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 greatest leaders build organizations that, in the end, don’t need them.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Leader Needs Organization
Creativity dies in an indisciplined environment.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Creativity Dies Environment
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
Change your practices without abandoning your core values.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Core Practice Values
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
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
Creative leadership impact increases in your 50’s. When I turn 50 I want to say, “Nice start!”
JAMES C. COLLINS

Creative Impact Nice
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
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

Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More James C. Collins Quotes