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. COLLINSThe challenge is not just to build a company that can endure; but to build one that is worthy of enduring.
More James C. Collins Quotes
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A visionary company doesn’t simply balance between idealism and profitability: it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable.
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The only acceptable goals are measurable,” but that’s actually an undisciplined statement. Lots of goals-beauty, quality, life change, love-are worthy but not quantifiable. But you do have to be able to tell if you’re making progress.
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Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.
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You absolutely must have the discipline not to hire until you find the right people.
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You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
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If you have a charismatic cause you don’t need to be a charismatic leader.
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Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity…are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.
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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.
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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.
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If you have more than three priorities then you don’t have any.
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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)
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No matter what. Wherever your mind wanders, it seems to turn up at the same Field of Dreams. It’s the vision you wake up with in the morning, and it’s the last thing you picture before you fall asleep.
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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.
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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.
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Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.
JAMES C. COLLINS