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Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.

James C. Collins

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James C. Collins
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 25
Author
Businessperson
Journalist
Writer
Boulder
Colorado
Failure
Results
Firsts
First
Foremost
Mediocrity
Technological
Management

More quotes by James C. Collins

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We are not imprisoned by circumstances, setbacks, mistakes or staggering defeats, we are freed by our choices.
James C. Collins
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Managing your problems can only make you good, whereas building your opportunities is the only way to become great.
James C. Collins
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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.
James C. Collins
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Good-to-great companies set their goals and strategies based on understanding comparison companies set their goals and strategies based on bravado.
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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.
James C. Collins
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The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving.
James C. Collins
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Those fortunate enough to find or create a practical intersection of the three circles have the basis for a great work life.
James C. Collins
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If we allow the celebrity rock-star model of leadership to triumph, we will see the decline of corporations and institutions of all types. The twentieth century was a century of greatness, but we face the very real prospect that the next century will see very few enduring great institutions.
James C. Collins
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How can you succeed by helping others succeed? We succeed at our very best only when we help others succeed.
James C. Collins
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The greatest leaders build organizations that, in the end, don't need them.
James C. Collins
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Not one of the good-to-great companies focused obsessively on growth.
James C. Collins
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Indeed, the real question is not, Why greatness? but What work makes you feel compelled to try to create greatness? if you have to ask the question, Why should we try to make it great? Isn't success enough? then you're probably int he wrong line of work.
James C. Collins
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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.
James C. Collins
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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.
James C. Collins
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The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is inconsistency.
James C. Collins
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Growth! is not a Hedgehog Concept. Rather, if you have the right Hedgehog Concept and make decisions relentlessly consistent with it, you will create such momentum that your main problem will not be how to grow, but how not to grow too fast.
James C. Collins
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If I'm going really, really fast, I can do a page of finished text a day, on average.
James C. Collins
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Good is the enemy of great. And that's one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.
James C. Collins
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Start a 'Stop Doing' list. I'll leave it as an existential dilemma on whether to put that task on your To Do list
James C. Collins
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True leadership has people who follow when they have the freedom not to.
James C. Collins