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Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity…are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.

James C. Collins

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

Business Discipline Purpose
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
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
I am completely Socratic.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Completely Emotion Socratic
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
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
Companies that change best over time know first and foremost what should not change.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Company Firsts Should
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
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
Great companies foster a productive tension between continuity and change.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Company Continuity Great Tension
If you have a charismatic cause you don’t need to be a charismatic leader.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Causes Leader Needs
A great company will have many once-in-a-liftetime opportunities.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Company Great Opportunity
Creativity dies in an indisciplined environment.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Creativity Dies Environment
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
I can just let my curiosity wander unleashed.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Curiosity Unleashed Wander
Yet at the same time they display a remarkable humility about themselves, ascribing much of their own success to luck, discipline and preparation rather than personal genius.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Ascribing Guest Personal Preparations Success Yet

Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity…are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.

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Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity…are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.

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