Quotes from James C. Collins

Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems. In

If you are a prospective entrepreneur with the desire to start and build a visionary company but have not yet taken the plunge because you don't have a "great idea," we encourage you to lift from your shoulders the burden of the great-idea myth. Indeed, the evidence suggests that it might be better to not obsess on finding a great idea before launching a company. Why? Because the great-idea approach shifts your attention away from seeing the company as your ultimate creation.

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

it is more important to know who you are than where you are going, for where you are going will change as the world around you changes.

Miller's comment leads to a very important point: Strategy is impossible without first setting a vision.

the world is changing, and will continue to do so. But that does not mean we should stop the search for timeless principles.

The difference is simply this: A micro-manager doesn't trust his people, and seeks to control every single detail and decision; he believes that ultimately only he will make the right choices. A personal-touch leader, on the other hand, trusts his people to make basically good choices; he respects their abilities.

Most companies (we believe that most organizations do indeed lack clarity of vision) let crises, firefights, and tactical decisions drive the company. We refer to this as "tactics-driving strategy." Vision should drive strategy and strategy, in turn, should drive tactics, not the other way around.

The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.

Leaders die, products become obsolete, markets change, new technologies emerge, and management fads come and go, but core ideology in a great company endures as a source of guidance and inspiration.

In classic hedgehog style, Walgreens took this simple concept and implemented it with fanatical consistency.

the big winners in corporate history consistently surpassed a threshold level of innovation required to compete in their industries. But what truly set the big winners apart was their ability to turn initial success into a sustained flywheel, even if they started out behind the pioneers

Indeed, one of the crucial elements in taking a company from good to great is somewhat paradoxical. You need executives, on the one hand, who argue and debate—sometimes violently—in pursuit of the best answers, yet, on the other hand, who unify fully behind a decision, regardless of parochial interests.

Level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well (and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck). At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly. The

companies more than ever need to have a clear understanding of their purpose in order to make work meaningful and thereby attract, motivate, and retain outstanding people. Discovering

under the right conditions, the problems of commitment, alignment, motivation, and change just melt away. They largely take care of themselves.

Two key questions can help. First, if it were a hiring decision (rather than a "should this person get off the bus?" decision), would you hire the person again? Second, if the person came to tell you that he or she is leaving to pursue an exciting new opportunity, would you feel terribly disappointed or secretly relieved?

transformations never happened in one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, the process resembled relentlessly pushing a giant heavy flywheel in one direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.

You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of

In Chapter 8, "Innovation," we stress the importance of decentralization and autonomy. The problem, of course, is how to unleash individual creativity and, at the same time, move in a unified direction. Vision is the link. If all people in the company have a guiding star on which to sight (a common vision), they can be dispersed in hundreds of independent little boats, rowing in the same direction.

The point is not to create a perfect statement but to gain a deep understanding of your organization's core values and purpose, which can then be expressed in a multitude of ways. In fact, we often suggest that once the core has been identified, managers should generate their own statements of the core values and purpose to share with their groups.

Whereas the good-to-great companies had Level 5 leaders who built an enduring culture of discipline, the unsustained comparisons had Level 4 leaders who personally disciplined the organization through sheer force.

Paradox: "We're not going to hit breakthrough by Christmas, but if we keep pushing in the right direction, we will eventually hit breakthrough.

In the early phases of an organization, a company's vision comes directly from its early leaders; it is very much their personal vision. To become great, however, a company must progress past excessive dependence on one or a few key individuals. The vision must become shared as a community, and become identified primarily with the organization, rather than with certain individuals running the organization. The vision must actually transcend the founders.