Quotes from James C. Collins

You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts.

Merck • Corporate social responsibility • Unequivocal excellence in all aspects of the company • Science-based innovation • Honesty and integrity • Profit, but profit from work that benefits humanity Nordstrom

Cultivating debate, argument, dialogue, and disagreement—all this takes time, resulting in a slower decision-making process than just issuing an executive order. But it also increases the probability of choosing a wise course of action.

The most constructive approach to critical feedback follows from the concept of leader as teacher. When you need to provide corrective or negative guidance, think not of yourself as a critic—or even a boss—but as a guide, mentor, and teacher. The process of critique should be an educational experience that contributes to the further development of the individual.

Nordstrom • Service to the customer above all else • Hard work and individual productivity • Never being satisfied • Excellence in reputation; being part of something special Philip

If you could pick one and only one ratio—profit per x (or, in the social sector, cash flow per x)—to systematically increase over time, what x would have the greatest and most sustainable impact on your economic engine?

Washington cultivated a culture of open dialogue, practicing his famous self-discipline of silence, encouraging arguments to compete, listening and probing, until he made up his mind to act.

Fanatical attention to consistency and detail •

Entrenched myth: Successful leaders in a turbulent world are bold, risk-seeking visionaries. Contrary finding: The best leaders we studied did not have a visionary ability to predict the future. They observed what worked, figured out why it worked, and built upon proven foundations. They were not more risk taking, more bold, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons. They were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.

Having a great idea or being a charismatic visionary leader is "time telling"; building a company that can prosper far beyond the presence of any single leader and through multiple product life cycles is "clock building.

In our view, corporations resemble nations in that they reflect the accumulation of past events and the shaping force of underlying genetics that have roots in prior generations.

We hire five, work them like ten, and pay them like eight.

Leading as a charismatic visionary—a "genius with a thousand helpers" upon whom everything depends—is time telling. Shaping a culture that can thrive far beyond any single leader is clock building.

Enduring great companies preserve their core values and purpose while their business strategies and operating practices endlessly adapt to a changing world. This is the magical combination of "preserve the core and stimulate progress.

Searching for a single great idea upon which to build success is time telling. Building an organization that can generate many great ideas is clock building. Our research showed that leaders who build enduring great companies make the shift from time telling to clock building. Clock builders create highly replicable recipes, extensive training programs, leadership-development pipelines, and tangible mechanisms to reinforce core values.

When you turn over rocks and look at all the squiggly things underneath, you can either put the rock down, or you can say, 'My job is to turn over rocks and look at the squiggly things,' even if what you see can scare the hell out of you."25 That quote, from Pitney Bowes executive Fred Purdue, could have come from any of the Pitney Bowes

Everyone gets luck, good and bad, but 10X winners make more of the luck they get.

The task before you is not to be a single charismatic individual with vision. The task is to build an organization with vision. Individuals die; great companies can live for centuries.

generally to do something which is of value.1

What's the role of luck? Our research showed that the great companies were not generally luckier than the comparisons—they didn't get more good luck, less bad luck, bigger spikes of luck, or better timing of luck. Instead, they got a higher return on luck, making more of their luck than others.

people worried more about the leader—what he would say, what he would think, what he would do— than they worried about external reality and what it could

Do first things first—and second things not at all. The alternative is to get nothing done. Peter F. Drucker

One powerful method for getting at purpose is the five whys. Start with the descriptive statement We make X products or We deliver X services, and then ask, Why is that important? five times. After a few whys, you'll find that you're getting down to the fundamental purpose of the organization. We

that if] you created the right type of corporate community, the right type of autonomous congregation, genius would flower.