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

James C. Collins

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James C. Collins
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 25
Author
Businessperson
Journalist
Writer
Boulder
Colorado
Foremost
Companies
Company
Change
Best
Firsts
First
Time

More quotes by 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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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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The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is inconsistency.
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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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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Good-to-great companies set their goals and strategies based on understanding comparison companies set their goals and strategies based on bravado.
James C. Collins
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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.
James C. Collins
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The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.
James C. Collins
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Don't take care of your career. Take care of your people. They will take care of your career.
James C. Collins
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Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.
James C. Collins
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Get keep right people.
James C. Collins
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Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99 percent alignment.
James C. Collins
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We must reject the idea... Well-intentioned, but dead wrong... That the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become more like a business. Most businesses... Like most of anything else in life... Fall somewhere between mediocre and good.
James C. Collins
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Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.
James C. Collins
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I've never found an important decision made by a great organization that was made at a point of unanimity. Significant decisions carry risks and inevitably some will oppose it. In these settings, the great legislative leader must be artful in handling uncomfortable decisions, and this requires rigor.
James C. Collins
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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.
James C. Collins
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Level 5 leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless.
James C. Collins
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Smart people instinctively understand the dangers of entrusting our future to self-serving leaders who use our institutions, whether in the corporate or social sectors, to advance their own interests.
James C. Collins
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The secret to a successful retirement is to find your retirement sweet spot. The sweet spot is where your passions, what you do best, and what people will pay you to do overlap.
James C. Collins
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Just because a company falls doesn't invalidate what we can learn by studying that company when it was at its historical best.
James C. Collins