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The greatest leaders build organizations that, in the end, don’t need them.

James C. Collins

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

Differences Greatness Leader
The main point is first get the right people on the bus (and wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it. The second key point is the degree of sheer rigor in people decisions in order to take a company from Good to Great.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Keys Order People Point Second
By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Average Definitions Good Great
Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Firsts Management Mediocrity
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
Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Built Company Enduring Great Results
People are not your most important asset….the right people are.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Good Great Important People
Change your practices without abandoning your core values.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Core Practice Values
We are not imprisoned by circumstances, setbacks, mistakes or staggering defeats, we are freed by our choices.
JAMES C. COLLINS

Choices Defeat Mistakes
In a truly great company profits and cash flow become like blood and water to a healthy body: They are absolutely essential for life but they are not the very point of life
JAMES C. COLLINS

Blood Business Responsibility
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 greatest leaders build organizations that, in the end, don’t need them.

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The greatest leaders build organizations that, in the end, don’t need them.

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