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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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James C. Collins
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 25
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More quotes by 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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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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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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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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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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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 x factor of a great leader is humility combined with will.
James C. Collins
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Good is the enemy of great.. The vast majority of good companies remain just that - good, but not 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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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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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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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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Get keep right people.
James C. Collins
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The critical question is not whether you'll have luck, but what you do with the luck that you get.
James C. Collins
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True leadership has people who follow when they have the freedom not to.
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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The essence of profound insight is simplicity.
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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Not one of the good-to-great companies focused obsessively on growth.
James C. Collins