Quotes from James C. Collins

The dominant pattern of history isn't stability, but instability; the dominant pattern of business isn't perpetuation of the incumbents, but triumph of the insurgents; the dominant pattern of capitalism isn't equilibrium, but what Joseph Schumpeter famously described as the "perennial gale of creative destruction

In a dangerous, turbulent world full of threats and disruptions, you need to "protect your flanks"—identify and protect against vulnerabilities that, if exposed or exploited, could kill or cripple you.

12 In retirement, Smith reflected on his exceptional performance, saying simply, "I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job.

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.

As people decide among themselves to turn the fact of potential into the fact of results, the goal almost sets itself.

It's hard to see the difference between greatness and mediocrity in good times, when almost everyone is thriving. But when the turbulent times come, the difference becomes stark; the companies that exercised productive paranoia far in advance will pull ahead of the weak mediocrities. And even if the ill-prepared survive the disruptive shock, they will likely never close the gap. The strong and well prepared before the storm continue to pull ahead, never to look back.

A crucial aspect of purpose is that it's always worked towards, but never fully achieved, like chasing the earth's horizon or pursuing a guiding star.

if you find yourself bogged down in elaborate columns of pros and cons, just randomly pick a decision and observe how you react. If you feel relief, then you probably made the right decision. If, on the other hand, you feel uneasy or tense—a "gnawing" in your stomach—then you probably made the wrong choice.

Clausewitz insisted on aggressively following up after concentrating force at the decisive point. Any strategy that doesn't account for how to exploit victory is incomplete, inadequate. "What remains true under all imaginable conditions," he wrote, "is that no victory will be effective without pursuit; and no matter how brief the exploitation of victory, it must always go further than an immediate follow-up.

To remain innovative, you've got to have people at all levels doing lots of experimenting, tinkering, and doing—creating the popcorn effect. How do you do this? How can you create the environment where this happens? There are three basic answers, which we shall now discuss in detail: Employ creative people Get out of their way Reward them for being innovative

the difficulties, AND at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. —WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

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.

Not only do you need to hire a few creative "misfits," you also need to tolerate their sometimes bizarre behavior. Some of the most creative people simply don't fit into typical well-behaved molds. They're often rebels, irritating and somewhat out of control.

When you have disciplined people, you don't

The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts.

If you're diversified into five businesses, as we once were, the businesses that only make up 3% of your sales are going to take 20% of your time, energy, and attention. It's just not worth it. Focus. Do what you do better than anyone else. And the results will probably be very positive, as they were for us once we decided to concentrate all our efforts on one line of business.

Do all creative innovations come from weird people? No, of course not. In fact, some of the most creative people we know come in fairly conservative packages. Yet, to have an innovative company, it's also wise to have tolerance for a few unruly crazies. As Max De Pree of Herman Miller puts it, "If you want the best things to happen in corporate life, you have to find ways to be hospitable to the unusual person.

SMaC" is the essence of consistent tactical excellence. SMaC (pronounced "smack," with a very hard "k" sound at the end . . . SmmaacK!) stands for "Specific, Methodical, and Consistent.

tends to rivet our attention on the Icarus companies

The same thing happens in business. When people become fat with conventional wisdom, they're dangerous. A lot of being innovative in business is being willing to give something a try because you don't know it flies in the face of conventional wisdom. As Debi Colman, Apple VP of information systems and technology, puts it: "The single biggest roadblock to creativity and innovation I've encountered in business is conventional wisdom.

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

It's not how you compensate your executives, it's which executives you have to compensate in the first place. If

Creating alignment, which is a key part of our ongoing work to help companies transform themselves into visionary companies, requires two key processes: 1) developing new alignments to preserve the core and stimulate progress, and 2) eliminating misalignments—those that drive the company away from the core ideology and those that impede progress toward the envisioned future.