Quotes from Jim Collins

Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.

The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.

Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.

Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.

Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated.

For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.

Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.

Creativity dies in an indisciplined environment.

By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.

The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results.

I don't know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great.

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

Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

What separates people is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.

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.

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.

Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.

Visionary companies are so clear about what they stand for and what they're trying to achieve that they simply don't have room for those unwilling or unable to fit their exacting standards.

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 engaged in the wrong line of work.

Visionary companies make some of their best moves by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and—quite literally—accident. What looks in retrospect like brilliant foresight and preplanning was often the result of "Let's just try a lot of stuff and keep what works.

Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth.... That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplanted by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast. —VIKTOR E. FRANKL, Man's Search for Meaning

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.