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. COLLINSIf I were running a company today, I would have one priority above all others: to acquire as many of the best people as I could. I’d put off everything else to fill my bus. Because things are going to come back. My flywheel is going to start to turn.
More James C. Collins Quotes
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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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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.
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Not every financial company toppled during the 2008 crisis, and some seized the opportunity to take advantage of weaker competitors in the midst of the tumult.
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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.
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It occurs to me,Jim,that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don’t you invest more time being interested?” Collin’s advice from John Gardner that he took to heart.
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Not one of the good-to-great companies focused obsessively on growth.
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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.
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The inner experience of fallure is totally different than failure. Going to fallure means 100% commitment – you leave nothing in reserve, no mental or physical resource untapped, you never give yourself a psychological out.
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Change your practices without abandoning your core values.
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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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Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity…are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.
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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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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.
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The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving.
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Great companies foster a productive tension between continuity and change.
JAMES C. COLLINS