Top 140 James C. Collins Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “We will never give up. We will never capitulate. It might take a long time, but we will find a way to prevail.”

— James C. Collins

102. “Think of the transformation as a process of buildup followed by breakthrough, broken into three broad stages: disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. Within each of these three stages, there are two key concepts, shown in the framework and described below. Wrapping around this entire framework is a concept we came to call the flywheel, which captures the gestalt of the entire process of going from good to great.”

— James C. Collins

103. “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.”

— James C. Collins

104. “Genuine confidence is what launches you out of bed in the morning, and through your day with a spring in your step.”

— James C. Collins

105. “Get keep right people.”

— James C. Collins

106. “Indeed, if there is any one “secret” to an enduring great company, it is the ability to manage continuity and change – a discipline that must be consciously practiced, even by the most visionary of companies.”

— James C. Collins

107. “If your company disappeared, would it leave a gaping hole that could not easily be filled by any other enterprise on the planet?”

— James C. Collins

108. “Leaders who led their organizations quietly and humbly, were much more effective than flashy, charismatic high profile leaders.”

— James C. Collins

109. “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. Indeed, we debated for a long time on the.”

— James C. Collins

110. “You get the best people, you build them into the best managers in the industry, and you accept the fact that some of them will be recruited to become CEOs of other companies.”

— James C. Collins

111. “What work makes you feel compelled to try to create greatness?”

— James C. Collins

112. “Discipline should amplify creativity rather than stifle it.”

— James C. Collins

113. “I see the Baldrige process as a powerful set of mechanisms for disciplined people engaged in disciplined thought and taking disciplined action to create great organizations that produce exceptional results.”

— James C. Collins

114. “Consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.”

— James C. Collins

115. “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.”

— James C. Collins

116. “The fact that something is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” is irrelevant, unless it fits within the three circles. A great company will have many once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.”

— James C. Collins

117. “Recruit entrepreneurial leaders and give them freedom to determine the best path to achieving their objectives. On the other hand, individuals must commit fully to the system you use and be held rigorously accountable for their objectives. You give them freedom, but freedom within a framework.”

— James C. Collins

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

— James C. Collins

119. “We learned that a former prisoner of war had more to teach us about what it takes to find a path to greatness than most books on corporate strategy.”

— James C. Collins

120. “If we allow the celebrity rock-star model of leadership to triumph, we will see the decline of corporations and institutions of all types. The twentieth century was a century of greatness, but we face the very real prospect that the next century will see very few enduring great institutions.”

— James C. Collins

121. “It took Einstein ten years of groping through the fog to get the theory of special relativity, and he was a bright guy.”

— James C. Collins

122. “The critical question is not whether you’ll have luck, but what you do with the luck that you get.”

— James C. Collins

123. “Be rigorous about your HR decisions. There is a difference between rigorous and ruthless.”

— James C. Collins

124. “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.”

— James C. Collins

125. “In other words, the budget process is not about figuring out how much each activity gets, but about determining which activities best support the Hedgehog Concept and should be fully strengthened and which should be eliminated entirely.”

— James C. Collins

126. “The people who don’t have a great life are the ones who settle for a good one.”

— James C. Collins

127. “If I’m going really, really fast, I can do a page of finished text a day, on average.”

— James C. Collins

128. “Those fortunate enough to find or create a practical intersection of the three circles have the basis for a great work life.”

— James C. Collins

129. “I am completely Socratic.”

— James C. Collins

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

— James C. Collins

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

— James C. Collins

132. “Level 5 leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless. To quickly grasp this concept, think of United States.”

— James C. Collins

133. “Just because a company falls doesn’t invalidate what we can learn by studying that company when it was at its historical best.”

— James C. Collins

134. “We find out who they are by asking them why they made decisions in their life. The answers to these questions give us insight into their core values.33.”

— James C. Collins

135. “Larger-than-life, celebrity leaders who ride in from the outside are negatively correlated with taking a company from good to great. Ten of eleven good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company, whereas the comparison companies tried outside CEOs six times more often.”

— James C. Collins

136. “So, early in the war, he created an entirely separate department outside the normal chain of command, called the Statistical Office, with the principal function of feeding him – continuously updated and completely unfiltered – the most brutal facts of reality.”

— James C. Collins

137. “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.”

— James C. Collins

138. “Hewlett Packard Chairman Built Company by Design, Calculator by Chance.”

— James C. Collins

139. “This rare ability to manage continuity and change – requiring a consciously practiced discipline – is closely linked to the ability to develop a vision.”

— James C. Collins

140. “The good-to-great companies built a consistent system with clear constraints, but they also gave people freedom and responsibility within the framework of that system. They hired self-disciplined people who didn’t need to be managed, and then managed the system, not the people.”

— James C. Collins

141. “If you’re involved in building and managing a company, we’re asking you to think less in terms of being a brilliant product visionary or seeking the personality characteristics of charismatic leadership, and to think more in terms of being an organizational visionary and building the characteristics of a visionary company.”

— James C. Collins

142. “None of us can predict with certainty the twists and turns our lives will take.”

— James C. Collins

143. “Second, if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away.”

— James C. Collins

144. “Goals live on the other side of obstacles and challenges,” said Bourque. “Along.”

— James C. Collins

145. “No human enterprise can succeed at the highest levels without consistency; if you bring no coherent unifying concept and disciplined methodology to your endeavors, you’ll be whipsawed by changes in your environment and cede your fate to forces outside your control.”

— James C. Collins