Jim Collins Quotes

There are two possible explanations for a stalled or stuck flywheel. Possible explanation #1: The underlying flywheel is just fine, but you’re failing to innovate and execute brilliantly on every single component; the flywheel needs to be reinvigorated. Possible explanation #2: The underlying flywheel no longer fits reality and must be changed in some significant way. It’s imperative that you make the right diagnosis.

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.

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).

"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 makes for a key seat? Any seat meeting any one of the following three conditions qualifies as key: The person in that seat has the power to make significant people decisions. Failure in the seat could expose the entire enterprise to significant risk or potential catastrophe. Success in the seat would have a significantly outsized impact on the company’s success.

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.

But 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.9

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.

It is no harder to build something great than to build something good. It might be statistically more rare to reach greatness, but it does not require more suffering than perpetuating mediocrity.

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.

A Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deeply understanding the intersection of the following three circles: (1) what you’re deeply passionate about, (2) what you can be the best in the world at, and (3) what drives your economic or resource engine.

Much of the answer to the question of “good to great” lies in the discipline to do whatever it takes to become the best within carefully selected arenas and then to seek continual improvement from there. It’s really just that simple. And it’s really just that difficult.

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.

A Level 5 executive team member does not blindly acquiesce to authority and is a strong leader in her own right, so driven and talented that she builds her arena into one of the very best in the world. Yet each team member must also have the ability to meld that strength into doing whatever it takes to make the company great.

a quiet, deliberate process of figuring out what needed to be done and then simply doing it, the comparison companies frequently launched new programs — often with great fanfare and hoopla aimed at “motivating the troops” — only to see the programs fail to produce sustained results. They sought the single defining action, the grand program, the one killer innovation, the miracle moment that would allow them to skip the arduous buildup stage and jump right to breakthrough. They would push the flywheel in one direction, then stop, change course, and throw it in a new direction — and then they would stop, change course, and throw it into yet another direction. After years of lurching back and forth, the comparison companies failed to build sustained momentum and fell instead into what we came to call the doom loop.