Jim Collins Quotes

We are not imprisoned by our circumstances. We are not imprisoned by the luck we get or the inherent unfairness of life. We are not imprisoned by crushing setbacks, self-inflicted mistakes or our past success. We are not imprisoned by the time in which we live, by the number of hours in a day or even the number of hours we're granted in our very short lives. In the end, we can control only a tiny sliver of what happens to us. But even so, we are free to choose, free to become great by choice.

It is the lesson from the mistake that makes it valuable, not the mistake itself.

"This is a culture that is very hostile to complacency," said one executive. "We have an itch that what we just accomplished, no matter how great, is never going to be good enough to sustain us," said another.

What separates people is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.

Good is the enemy of great

Great organizations understand the difference between their core values and purpose (which almost never change), and operating strategies and cultural practices (which endlessly adapt to a changing world).

what truly set the big winners apart was their ability to turn initial success into a sustained flywheel, even if they started out behind the pioneers.

It is impossible for us to break the law. We can only break ourselves against the law.

if it were a hiring decision (rather than a “should this person get off the bus?” decision), would you hire the person again? Second, if the person came to tell you that he or she is leaving to pursue an exciting new opportunity, would you feel terribly disappointed or secretly relieved?

What drives your economic engine. All the good-to-great companies attained piercing insight into how to most effectively generate sustained and robust cash flow and profitability. In particular, they discovered the single denominator — profit per x — that had the greatest impact on their economics.

No, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.

core values are essential for enduring greatness, but it doesn’t seem to matter what those core values are. The point is not what core values you have, but that you have core values at all, that you know what they are, that you build them explicitly into the organization, and that you preserve them over time.

If you know the failure paths of the job, identify them. Be honest and open — tell a person where the quicksand is and where the wild animals are. You don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel every day. Let people learn from your mistakes or the mistakes of others. Point out the potential failure paths, what not to do, but don’t tell them what to do. Keep the responsibility for results with them — to do whatever is necessary within the guidelines.

Certainly, we always need to search for new ideas and solutions — invention and discovery move humankind forward — but the biggest problems facing organizations today stem not from a dearth of new management ideas (we’re inundated with them), but primarily from a lack of understanding the basic fundamentals and, most problematic, a failure to consistently apply those fundamentals

Create a list of significant replicable successes your enterprise has achieved. This should include new initiatives and offerings that have far exceeded expectations.