Quote

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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James C. Collins
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 25
Author
Businessperson
Journalist
Writer
Boulder
Colorado
Start
Dilemma
Whether
Existential
List
Lists
Task
Tasks
Leave
Stop

More quotes by 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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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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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.
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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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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Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.
James C. Collins
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Discipline should amplify creativity rather than stifle it.
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 people who don't have a great life are the ones who settle for a good one.
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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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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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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In a world of constant change, the fundamentals are more important than ever.
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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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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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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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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It's what you do before you are in trouble, so that you can be strong when people most need you.
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