James C. Collins

Businessman

1958-01-25

Quotes by James C. Collins

If we only have great companies, we will merely have a prosperous society, not a great one. Economic growth and power are the means, not the definition, of a great nation.
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To use an analogy, the leadership is the answer to everything perspective is the modern equivalent of the, 'God is the answer to everything' perspective that held back our scientific understanding of the physical world in the Dark Ages. In the 1500's, people ascribed all events they didn't understand to God. Why did the crops fail? God did it. Why did we have an earthquake? God did it. What holds the planets in place? God. But with the Enlightenment, we began the search for a more scientific understanding - physics, chemistry, biology and so forth. Not that we become atheists, but we gained deeper understanding about how the universe ticks.Similarly, every time we attribute everything to 'Leadership, we're no different from the people in the 1500's. We're simply admitting our ignorance. Not that we should become leadership atheists (leadership does matter), but every time we throw our hands up in frustration - reverting back to well, the answer must be Leadership! - we prevent ourselves from gaining deeper, more scientific understanding about what makes great companies tick.
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Comfort is not the objective in a visionary company. Indeed, visionary companies install powerful mechanisms to create /dis/comfort--to obliterate complacency--and thereby stimulate change and improvement /before/ the external world demands it.
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...it is far more important to know who you are than where you are going, for where you are going will certainly change as the world about you changes.
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Then it began to dawn on us: There was no miracle moment. Although it may have looked like a single-stroke breakthrough to those peering in from the outside, it was anything but that to people experiencing transformation from within. Rather, it was a quiet, deliberate process of figuring out what needed to be done to create the best future results and then simply taking those steps, one after the other, turn by turn of the flywheel. After pushing on that flywheel in a consistent direction over an extended period of time, they'd inevitably hit a point of breakthrough.
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If we only have great companies, we will merely have a prosperous society, not a great one. Economic growth and power are the means, not the definition, of a great nation.
Read quote
Then it began to dawn on us: There was no miracle moment. Although it may have looked like a single-stroke breakthrough to those peering in from the outside, it was anything but that to people experiencing transformation from within. Rather, it was a quiet, deliberate process of figuring out what needed to be done to create the best future results and then simply taking those steps, one after the other, turn by turn of the flywheel. After pushing on that flywheel in a consistent direction over an extended period of time, they'd inevitably hit a point of breakthrough.
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...it is far more important to know who you are than where you are going, for where you are going will certainly change as the world about you changes.
Read quote
To use an analogy, the leadership is the answer to everything perspective is the modern equivalent of the, 'God is the answer to everything' perspective that held back our scientific understanding of the physical world in the Dark Ages. In the 1500's, people ascribed all events they didn't understand to God. Why did the crops fail? God did it. Why did we have an earthquake? God did it. What holds the planets in place? God. But with the Enlightenment, we began the search for a more scientific understanding - physics, chemistry, biology and so forth. Not that we become atheists, but we gained deeper understanding about how the universe ticks.Similarly, every time we attribute everything to 'Leadership, we're no different from the people in the 1500's. We're simply admitting our ignorance. Not that we should become leadership atheists (leadership does matter), but every time we throw our hands up in frustration - reverting back to well, the answer must be Leadership! - we prevent ourselves from gaining deeper, more scientific understanding about what makes great companies tick.
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Comfort is not the objective in a visionary company. Indeed, visionary companies install powerful mechanisms to create /dis/comfort--to obliterate complacency--and thereby stimulate change and improvement /before/ the external world demands it.
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I can just let my curiosity wander unleashed.
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Not every financial company toppled during the 2008 crisis, and some seized the opportunity to take advantage of weaker competitors in the midst of the tumult.
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