Jim Collins Quotes

The only legitimate form of discipline is self-discipline, having the inner will to do whatever it takes to create a great outcome, no matter how difficult. When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don’t need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you create a powerful mixture that correlates with great performance. To build an enduring great organization — whether in the business or social sectors — you need disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and take disciplined action to produce superior results and make a distinctive impact in the world.

We have such a tendency to rush in, to fix things up with good advice. But we often fail to take the time to diagnose, to really, deeply understand the problem first.

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.

One ought not to reject the data merely because one does not like what the data implies.

When in doubt, vary, change, solve the problem, seize the opportunity, experiment, try something new (consistent, of course, with the core ideology) — even if you can’t predict precisely how things will turn out. Do something. If one thing fails, try another. Fix. Try. Do. Adjust. Move. Act. No matter what, don’t sit still.

Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.

Look, this is going to be a very hard challenge. I want you to think about how demanding this is going to be. If you don’t think you’re going to like it, that’s fine. Nobody’s going to hate you.

For a truly great company, the Big Thing is never any specific line of business or product or idea or invention. The Big Thing is your underlying flywheel architecture, properly conceived

The flywheel, when properly conceived and executed, creates both continuity and change. On the one hand, you need to stay with a flywheel long enough to get its full compounding effect. On the other hand, to keep the flywheel spinning, you need to continually renew, and improve each and every component.

In Built to Last, Jerry Porras and I observed that those who build enduring great companies reject the “Tyranny of the OR” (the view that things must be either A OR B but not both). Instead, they liberate themselves with the “Genius of the AND.” Instead of choosing between A OR B, they figure out a way to have both A AND B. When it comes to the flywheel, you need to fully embrace the Genius of the AND, sustain the flywheel AND renew the flywheel.

So, the question of Why greatness? is almost a nonsense question. If you're engaged in work that you love and care about, for whatever reason, then the question needs no answer. The question is not why, but how.

When you turn over rocks and look at all the squiggly things underneath, you can either put the rock down, or you can say, 'My job is to turn over rocks and look at the squiggly things,' even if what you see can scare the hell out of you.

What matters most is how well you understand your flywheel and how well you execute on each component over a long series of iterations.

Similarly, across all our rigorous matched-pair research studies (Built to Last, Good to Great, How the Mighty Fall, and Great by Choice), we found no systematic correlation between achieving the highest levels of performance and being first into the game.

Contrary finding: The best leaders we studied did not have a visionary ability to predict the future. They observed what worked, figured out why it worked, and built upon proven foundations. They were not more risk taking, more bold, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons. They were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid. ………. Entrenched myth: A threat filled world favors the speedy; you’re either the quick or the dead. Contrary finding: The idea that leading in a “fast world” always requires “fast decisions” and “fast action” — and that we should embrace an overall ethos of “Fast! Fast! Fast!” — is a good way to get killed. 10X leaders figure out when to go fast, and when not to. Entrenched myth: Radical change on the outside requires radical change on the inside. Contrary finding: The 10X cases changed less in reaction to their changing world than the comparison cases. Just because your environment is rocked by dramatic change does not mean that you should inflict radical change upon yourself.