Jim Collins (1958-)

Jim Collins quotes

• The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

  Jim Collins

• Visionary companies pursue a cluster of objectives, of which making money is only one—and not necessarily the primary one.

  Jim Collins

• The only truly reliable source of stability is a strong inner core and the willingness to change and adapt everything except that core.

  Jim Collins

• All companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline.

  Jim Collins

• When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don't need bureaucracy.

  Jim Collins

• “shareholder wealth” is the standard “off-the-shelf” purpose for those organizations that have not yet identified their true core purpose. It is a substitute ideology, and a weak substitute at that.

  Jim Collins

• Abraham Lincoln (one of the few Level 5 presidents in United States history), who never let his ego get in the way of his primary ambition for the larger cause of an enduring great nation.

  Jim Collins

• In contrast, the comparison leaders, concerned more with their own reputation for personal greatness, often failed to set the company up for success in the next generation.

  Jim Collins

• In over three quarters of the comparison companies, we found executives who set their successors up for failure or chose weak successors, or both.

  Jim Collins

• The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results.

  Jim Collins

• It is very important to grasp that Level 5 leadership is not just about humility and modesty. It is equally about ferocious resolve, an almost stoic determination to do whatever needs to be done to make the company great.

  Jim Collins

• Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce results. They will sell the mills or fire their brother, if that's what it takes to make the company great.

  Jim Collins

• I don't know for certain that you absolutely must be a Level 5 leader to make your company great,

  Jim Collins

• Level 5 Leadership: looks in the mirror, not out the window, to apportion responsibility for poor results, never blaming other people, external factors, or bad luck.

  Jim Collins

• The good-to-great companies probably sound like tough places to work and they are. If you don't have what it takes, you probably won't last long. But they're not ruthless cultures, they're rigorous cultures. And the distinction is crucial.

  Jim Collins

• For every minute you allow a person to continue holding a seat when you know that person will not make it in the end, you're stealing a portion of his life, time that he could spend finding a better place where he could flourish.

  Jim Collins

• Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

  Jim Collins

• 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.

  Jim Collins

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

  Jim Collins

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

  Jim Collins

• Those that stay true to these fundamentals and maintain their balance, even in times of great change and disruption, will accumulate the momentum that creates breakthrough momentum.

  Jim Collins

• When you marry operating excellence with innovation, you multiply the value of your creativity.

  Jim Collins

• Far more difficult than implementing change is figuring out what works, understanding why it works, grasping when to change, and knowing when not to.

  Jim Collins

• The difficult task is to marry relentless discipline with creativity, neither letting discipline inhibit creativity nor letting creativity erode discipline.

  Jim Collins

• we are ultimately responsible for improving performance. We never blame circumstance; we never blame the environment.

  Jim Collins

• Innovation without discipline leads to disaster.

  Jim Collins