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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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James C. Collins
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 25
Author
Businessperson
Journalist
Writer
Boulder
Colorado
Great
Good
Life
People
Settle
Settling
Ones

More quotes by James C. Collins

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I am completely Socratic.
James C. Collins
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Change your practices without abandoning your core values.
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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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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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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Companies that change best over time know first and foremost what should not change.
James C. Collins
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The essence of profound insight is simplicity.
James C. Collins
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The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency.
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'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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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 x factor of a great leader is humility combined with will.
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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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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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 took Einstein ten years of groping through the fog to get the theory of special relativity, and he was a bright guy.
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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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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The only way to remain great is to keep on applying the fundamental principles that made you great.
James C. Collins