Top 135 Quotes & Sayings by James C. Collins

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

I am completely Socratic.

I can just let my curiosity wander unleashed.

Not every financial company toppled during the 2008 crisis, and some seized the opportunity to take advantage of weaker competitors in the midst of the tumult.

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

Just because a company falls doesn't invalidate what we can learn by studying that company when it was at its historical best.

Genius of AND. Embrace both extremes on a number of dimensions at the same time. Instead of choosing a OR B, figure out how to have A AND B-purpose AND profit, continuity AND change, freedom AND responsibility, etc.

Don't be interesting - be interested.

All companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline. 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.

Leaders who led their organizations quietly and humbly, were much more effective than flashy, charismatic high profile leaders.

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.

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.

Focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path to greatness.

Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99 percent alignment.

True leadership has people who follow when they have the freedom not to.

Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.

The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.

The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconstancy. The signature of greatness is a disciplined and consistent focus on the right things.

The critical question is not whether you'll have luck, but what you do with the luck that you get.

Start a 'Stop Doing' list. I'll leave it as an existential dilemma on whether to put that task on your To Do list

How can you succeed by helping others succeed? We succeed at our very best only when we help others succeed.

Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.

An organization is not truly great, if it cannot be great without you.

The x factor of a great leader is humility combined with will.

Look, I don't really know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we'll figure out how to take it someplace great.

You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Managing your problems can only make you good, whereas building your opportunities is the only way to become great.

Don't take care of your career. Take care of your people. They will take care of your career.

The difference between a good leader and a great leader is humility.

If you have more than three priorities then you don't have any.

Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.

Comparison, a great teacher once told me, is the cardinal sin of modern life. It traps us in a game that we can't win. Once we define ourselves in terms of others, we lose the freedom to shape our own lives.

The only mistakes you can learn from are the ones you survive.

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.

First figure out your partners, then figure out what ideas to pursue. The most important thing isn't the market you target, the product you develop or the financing, but the founding team.

The only way to remain great is to keep on applying the fundamental principles that made you great.

Whether you prevail or fail depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you.

The greatest leaders build organizations that, in the end, don't need them.

The essence of profound insight is simplicity.

In a world of constant change, the fundamentals are more important than ever.

You can't manufacture passion or "motivate" people to feel passionate. You can only discover what ignites your passion and the passions of those around you.

For no matter what we achieve, if we don't spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we cannot possibly have a great life. But if we spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect - people we really enjoy being on the bus with and who will never disappoint us - then we will almost certainly have a great life, no matter where the bus goes. The people we interviewed from the good-to-great companies clearly loved what they did, largely because they loved who they did it with.

How can we do better tomorrow than we did today?

Resilency, not perfection, is the signature of greatness.

People are not your most important asset....the right people are.

Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness.

The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is inconsistency.

Good is the enemy of great. That's why so few things become great.

Creativity dies in an indisciplined environment.

You absolutely must have the discipline not to hire until you find the right people.

We are not imprisoned by circumstances, setbacks, mistakes or staggering defeats, we are freed by our choices.

Great companies foster a productive tension between continuity and change.

Change your practices without abandoning your core values.

The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving.

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

In the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then you might gain that great tranquility that comes from knowing that you've had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions: knowing that your short time on this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered.

The challenge is not just to build a company that can endure; but to build one that is worthy of enduring.

Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats...

That good is the enemy of great is not just a business problem. It is a human problem.