James C. Collins Quotes - Page 5

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

Faith in the endgame helps you live through the months or years of buildup.

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. Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.

Good is the enemy of great.

Recruit entrepreneurial leaders and give them freedom to determine the best path to achieving their objectives. On the other hand, individuals must commit fully to the system you use and be held rigorously accountable for their objectives. You give them freedom, but freedom within a framework.

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.

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.

...the question, Why try for greatness? would seem almost tautological. If you're doing something you care that much about, and you believe in its purpose deeply enough, then it is impossible to imagine not trying to make it great. It's just a given.

It's what you do before you are in trouble, so that you can be strong when people most need you.

Creative leadership impact increases in your 50's. When I turn 50 I want to say, "Nice start!"

The secret to a successful retirement is to find your retirement sweet spot. The sweet spot is where your passions, what you do best, and what people will pay you to do overlap.

Not one of the good-to-great companies focused obsessively on growth.

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! The only way to make any company visionary is through a long-term commitment to an eternal process of building the organization to preserve the core and stimulate progress.

I can just let my curiosity wander unleashed.

If you have a charismatic cause you don't need to be a charismatic leader.

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.

The people who don't have a great life are the ones who settle for a good one.

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.

If we only have great companies, we will merely have a prosperous society, not a great one. Economic growth and power are the means, not the definition, of a great nation.

I see the Baldrige process as a powerful set of mechanisms for disciplined people engaged in disciplined thought and taking disciplined action to create great organizations that produce exceptional results.

I am completely Socratic.

It took Einstein ten years of groping through the fog to get the theory of special relativity, and he was a bright guy.

A great company will have many once-in-a-liftetime opportunities.

If your company disappeared, would it leave a gaping hole that could not easily be filled by any other enterprise on the planet?

Indeed, the real question is not, "Why greatness?" but "What work makes you feel compelled to try to create greatness?" if you have to ask the question, "Why should we try to make it great? Isn't success enough?" then you're probably int he wrong line of work.