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A visionary company doesn’t simply balance between idealism and profitability: it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable.

James C. Collins

Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Done Involved Involves Possibly Something
Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Blood Oxygen Water
If you have a charismatic cause you don’t need to be a charismatic leader.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Causes Leader Needs
Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Decision Good Great Intentions
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
The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake. The best people don’t need to be managed. Guided, taught, led-yes. But not tightly managed.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Business Mistake People
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
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
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
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
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
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
Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard the decisions.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Decision Leadership Needs
The only mistakes you can learn from are the ones you survive.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Learn Mistakes Survive
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
Change your practices without abandoning your core values.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Core Practice Values

A visionary company doesn’t simply balance between idealism and profitability: it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable.

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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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