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Companies that change best over time know first and foremost what should not change.

James C. Collins

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
Creativity dies in an indisciplined environment.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Creativity Dies Environment
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
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
In an ironic twist, I now see Good to Great not as a sequel to Built to Last, but more of a prequel. Good to Great is about how to turn a good organization into one that produces sustained great results.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Ironic Lasts Organization
We are not imprisoned by circumstances, setbacks, mistakes or staggering defeats, we are freed by our choices.
JAMES C. COLLINS

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

Differences Greatness Leader
It may seem odd to talk about something as soft and fuzzy as “passion” as an integral part of a strategic framework. But throughout the good-to-great companies, passion became a key part of the Hedgehog Concept.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Keys Passion
Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Firsts Management Mediocrity
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
Not all time in life is equal. How many opportunities do you get to talk about what your life is going to add up to with people thinking about the same question?
JAMES C. COLLINS

Opportunity People Thinking
By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Average Definitions Good Great
The best CEOs in our research display tremendous ambition for their company combined with the stoic will to do whatever it takes, no matter how brutal (within the bounds of the company’s core values), to make the company great.
JAMES C. COLLINS

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

Decision Good Great Intentions
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

Companies that change best over time know first and foremost what should not change.

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Companies that change best over time know first and foremost what should not change.

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