Quotes from James C. Collins

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.

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

If I'm going really, really fast, I can do a page of finished text a day, on average.

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.

Good is the enemy of great.

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

Companies that change best over time know first and foremost what should not change.

Most people will look back and realize they did not have a great life because it's just so easy to settle for a good life.

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

while you can buy your way to growth, you absolutely cannot buy your way to greatness.

thoughtless reliance on technology is a liability

The good-to-great companies made a habit of putting their best people on their best opportunities, not their biggest problems. The comparison companies had a penchant for doing just the opposite, failing to grasp the fact that managing your problems can only make you good, whereas building your opportunities is the only way to become great. There is an important

Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people. The management team

You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts. The good-to-great companies operated

innovation without discipline leads to disaster.

Think of the transformation as a process of buildup followed by breakthrough, broken into three broad stages: disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. Within each of these three stages, there are two key concepts, shown in the framework and described below. Wrapping around this entire framework is a concept we came to call the flywheel, which captures the gestalt of the entire process of going from good to great.

The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you've made a hiring mistake. The best people don't need to be managed. Guided, taught, led—yes. But not tightly managed.

Yes, the world is changing, and will continue to do so. But that does not mean we should stop the search for timeless principles. Think of it this way: While the practices of engineering continually evolve and change, the laws of physics remain relatively fixed. I like to think of our work as a search for timeless principles—

Charisma can be as much a liability as an asset, as the strength of your leadership personality can deter people from bringing you the brutal facts.

There is nothing I find more exciting than picking a question that I don't know the answer to and embarking on a quest for answers.

One of the most important steps you can take in building a visionary company is not an action, but a shift in perspective.

You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts. The good-to-great companies operated in accordance with this principle, and the comparison companies generally did not.

Discover your core values and purpose beyond just making money (core ideology) and combine this with the dynamic of preserve the core/stimulate progress.

That's what makes death so hard—unsatisfied curiosity. —BERYL MARKHAM