Jim Collins Quotes

“A dream is a feeling that sticks – and propels.”

“A great company will have many once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.”

“Creativity dies in an indisciplined environment.”

“If you have more than 3 priorities, you don’t have any.”

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

“It occurs to me, Jim, that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don't you invest more time being interested?”

“Visionary companies are so clear about what they stand for and what they’re trying to achieve that they simply don’t have room for those unwilling or unable to fit their exacting standards.”

“A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.”

“A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness.”

“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.”

“All companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline. 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 get the magical alchemy of great performance.”

“An organization is not truly great, if it cannot be great without you.”

“Build a culture around the idea of freedom and responsibility, within a framework.”

“By definition, it is not possible for everyone to be above the average.”

“Charisma can be as much a liability as an asset, as the strength of your leadership personality can deter people from bringing you the brutal facts.”

“Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.”

“Great vision without great people is irrelevant.”

“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”

“In the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.”

“Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated.”

“The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake.”

“The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.”

“A true BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) is clear and compelling, serves as a unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines. A BHAG engages people – it reaches out and grabs them. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused. People get it right away; it takes little or no explanation.”

“Building a visionary company requires 1% vision and 99% alignment. When you have superb alignment, a visitor could drop in from outer space and infer your vision from the operations and activities of the company without ever reading it on paper or meeting a single senior executive.”

“Companies more than ever need to have a clear understanding of their purpose in order to make work meaningful and thereby attract, motivate, and retain outstanding people.”

“Purpose (which should last at least 100 years) should not be confused with specific goals or business strategies (which should change many times in 100 years). Whereas you might achieve a goal or complete a strategy, you cannot fulfill a purpose; it is like a guiding star on the horizon – forever pursued but never reached. Yet although purpose itself does not change, it does inspire change. The very fact that purpose can never be fully realized means that an organization can never stop stimulating change and progress.”

“The envisioned future should be so exciting in its own right that it would continue to keep the organization motivated even if the leaders who set the goal disappeared.”

“To create an effective envisioned future requires a certain level of unreasonable confidence and commitment. Keep in mind that a BHAG is not just a goal; it is a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal.”

“Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.”