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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
Firsts
First
Time
Foremost
Companies
Company
Change
Best

More quotes by James C. Collins

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Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity...are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.
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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In an ironic twist, I now see Good to Great not as a sequel to Built to Last, but more of a prequel. Good to Great is about how to turn a good organization into one that produces sustained great results. Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.
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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There is a sense of exhilaration that comes from facing head-on the hard truths and saying, We will never give up. We will never capitulate. It might take a long time, but we will find a way to prevail.
James C. Collins
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A visionary company doesn't simply balance between idealism and profitability: it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable. A visionary company doesn't simply balance between preserving a tightly held core ideology and stimulating vigorous change and movement it does both to an extreme.
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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In determing the right people, the good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character attributes than on specific educational background, practical skills, specialized knowledge, or work experience.
James C. Collins
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Discipline should amplify creativity rather than stifle it.
James C. Collins
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By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.
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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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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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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I see the Baldrige process as a powerful set of mechanisms for disciplined people engaged in disciplined thought and taking disciplined action to create great organizations that produce exceptional results.
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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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
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Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.
James C. Collins
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I am completely Socratic.
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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Focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path to greatness.
James C. Collins