Quotes About Discipline

It takes discipline to say "No, thank you" to big opportunities.

James C. Collins

You don't get a chance to adjust and finagle, and decide that you really didn't intend to do that anyway, and readjust your objectives to make yourself look better. You never just focus on what you've accomplished for the year; you focus on what you've accomplished relative to exactly what you said you were going to accomplish—no matter how tough the measure. That was a discipline learned at Abbott, and that we carried into Amgen.3

It requires the discipline to say, "Just because we are good at it—just because we're making money and generating growth—doesn't necessarily mean we can become the best at it." The good-to-great companies understood that doing what you are good at will only make you good; focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path to greatness.

What is the purpose of budgeting? Most

Hedgehog Concept—disciplined action, following from disciplined people who exercise disciplined thought.

Sustained great results depend upon building a culture full of self-disciplined people who take disciplined action, fanatically consistent with the three circles.

Bureaucratic cultures arise to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline, which arise from having the wrong people on the bus in the first place.

to create great results requires a nearly fanatical dedication to the idea of consistency within the Hedgehog Concept.

You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Practical Discipline #3: Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

What we did was so simple, and we kept it simple. It

Discipline is the greatest thing in the world. Where there is no discipline, there is no character. And without character, there is no progress. . . . Adversity gives us opportunities to grow. And we usually get what we work for. If we have problems and overcome them, we grow tall in character, and the qualities that bring success.

When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don't need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don't need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.

A culture of discipline involves a duality. On the one hand, it requires people who adhere to a consistent system; yet, on the other hand, it gives people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system.

Practical Discipline #2: When you know you need to make a people change, act.

When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance. Technology

First, at the top levels of your organization, you absolutely must have the discipline not to hire until you find the right people. The single most harmful step you can take in a journey from good to great is to put the wrong people in key positions. Second, widen your definition of "right people" to focus more on the character attributes of the person and less on specialized knowledge. People can learn skills and acquire knowledge, but

The key point of this chapter is not just the idea of getting the right people on the team. The key point is that "who" questions come before "what" decisions—before vision, before strategy, before organization structure, before tactics. First who, then what—as a rigorous discipline, consistently applied.

Reichardt kept people relentlessly focused on the simple hedgehog idea

It all starts with disciplined people. The transition begins not by trying to discipline the wrong people into the right behaviors, but by getting self-disciplined people on the bus in the first place.

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.

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

the purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline—a problem that largely goes away if you have the right people in the first place.