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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

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

Differences Greatness Leader
Significant decisions carry risks and inevitably some will oppose it. In these settings, the great legislative leader must be artful in handling uncomfortable decisions, and this requires rigor.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Inevitably REquired Rigor Significant
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 purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Discipline Purpose
A great company will have many once-in-a-liftetime opportunities.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Company Great Opportunity
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
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
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
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
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
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
In a world of constant change, the fundamentals are more important than ever.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Communication Fundamentals Important
Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity…are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Marketing Mediocrity Motivated
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More James C. Collins Quotes