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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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James C. Collins
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 25
Author
Businessperson
Journalist
Writer
Boulder
Colorado
Point
Water
Body
Without
Life
Oxygen
Like
Profit
Blood
Food

More quotes by 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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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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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.
James C. Collins
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The people who don't have a great life are the ones who settle for a good one.
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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The only way to remain great is to keep on applying the fundamental principles that made you great.
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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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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Companies that change best over time know first and foremost what should not change.
James C. Collins
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In a truly great company profits and cash flow become like blood and water to a healthy body: They are absolutely essential for life but they are not the very point of life
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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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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Consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.
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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I am completely Socratic.
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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The essence of profound insight is simplicity.
James C. Collins
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The inner experience of fallure is totally different than failure. Going to fallure means 100% commitment - you leave nothing in reserve, no mental or physical resource untapped, you never give yourself a psychological out. Failure means making a decision to let go, to be less than 100% committed, when confronted by fear, pain and uncertainty.
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