214 Quotes by James C. Collins

Managing your problems can only make you good, whereas building your opportunities is the only way to become great.

I can just let my curiosity wander unleashed.

The main point is first get the right people on the bus (and wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it. The second key point is the degree of sheer rigor in people decisions in order to take a company from Good to Great.

The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is inconsistency.

The inner experience of fallure is totally different than failure. Going to fallure means 100% commitment - you leave nothing in reserve, no mental or physical resource untapped, you never give yourself a psychological out. Failure means making a decision to let go, to be less than 100% committed, when confronted by fear, pain and uncertainty.

Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.

Smart people instinctively understand the dangers of entrusting our future to self-serving leaders who use our institutions, whether in the corporate or social sectors, to advance their own interests.

We must reject the idea... Well-intentioned, but dead wrong... That the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become "more like a business." Most businesses... Like most of anything else in life... Fall somewhere between mediocre and good.

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