Quotes from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“When [what you are deeply passionate about, what you can be best in the world at and what drives your economic engine] come together, not only does your work move toward greatness, but so does your life. For, 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. Perhaps, then, you might gain that rare tranquility that comes from knowing that you’ve had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions: knowing that your short time here on this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Great vision without great people is irrelevant.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“For, 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.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“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.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Faith in the endgame helps you live through the months or years of buildup.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“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.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Indeed, the real question is not, “Why greatness?” but “What work makes you feel compelled to try to create greatness?” If you have to ask the question, “Why should we try to make it great? Isn’t success enough?” then you’re probably engaged in the wrong line of work.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“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, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth.... That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplanted by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast. —VIKTOR E. FRANKL, Man’s Search for Meaning”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit. —HARRY S. TRUMAN1”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“while you can buy your way to growth, you absolutely cannot buy your way to greatness.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“The moment a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse. This is one of the key reasons why less charismatic leaders often produce better long-term results than their more charismatic counterparts. Indeed,”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“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, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Perhaps your quest to be part of building something great will not fall in your business life. But find it somewhere. If not in corporate life, then perhaps in making your church great. If not there, then perhaps a nonprofit, or a community organization, or a class you teach. Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“thoughtless reliance on technology is a liability,”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Every good-to-great company had Level 5 leadership during the pivotal transition years. • “Level 5” refers to a five-level hierarchy of executive capabilities, with Level 5 at the top. Level 5 leaders embody a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will. They are ambitious, to be sure, but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves. • Level 5 leaders set up their successors for even greater success in the next generation, whereas egocentric Level 4 leaders often set up their successors for failure. • Level 5 leaders display a compelling modesty, are self-effacing and understated. In contrast, two thirds of the comparison companies had leaders with gargantuan personal egos that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company. • Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard the decisions. • Level 5 leaders display a workmanlike diligence—more plow horse than show horse. • Level 5 leaders look out the window to attribute success to factors other than themselves. When things go poorly, however, they look in the mirror and blame themselves, taking full responsibility. The comparison CEOs often did just the opposite—they looked in the mirror to take credit for success, but out the window to assign blame for disappointing results.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“The good-to-great companies made a habit of putting their best people on their best opportunities, not their biggest problems. The comparison companies had a penchant for doing just the opposite, failing to grasp the fact that managing your problems can only make you good, whereas building your opportunities is the only way to become great. There is an important”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“You absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts. The good-to-great companies operated”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“It didn’t matter how bleak the situation or how stultifying their mediocrity, they all maintained unwavering faith that they would not just survive, but prevail as a great company. And yet, at the same time, they became relentlessly disciplined at confronting the most brutal facts of their current reality.”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people. The management team”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

“That’s what makes death so hard—unsatisfied curiosity. —BERYL MARKHAM,”
― James C. Collins, quote from Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

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“A pale blob appeared on the other side of the glass. Evrial yelped and jumped backward faster than a dog bit by a snake. Her calf caught on the edge of the bed, and she tumbled onto it.
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“His presence makes me feel thin. Not model slender. But worn, like an old cotton housedress. Thin like a specimen pressed between two plates of glass. Like a bug squashed beneath the marching boot of a soldier.

Thin and worn and silence like I've never known.

This is how I know he is not a Tick.

They are as pitiable as they are inhuman. They are fear personified. Their emotions and minds given over to rage and hunger. They are all noise. He is none.

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“As you say, DeWar, our shame comes from the comparison. We know we might be generous and compassionate and good, and could behave so, yet something else in our nature makes us otherwise." She smiled a small, empty smile. "Yes, I feel something I recognise as love. Something I remember, something I may discuss and mill and theorise over." She shook her head. "But it is not something I know. I am like a blind woman taking about how a tree must look, or a cloud. Love is something I have a dim memory of, the way someone who went blind in their early childhood might recall the sun, or the face of their mother. I know affection from my fellow whore-wives, DeWar, and I sense regard from you and feel some in return. I have a duty to the Protector, just as he feels he has a duty to me. As far as that goes, I am content. But love? That is for the living, and I am dead.”
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“...stop throwing him out the window...They are expensive to replace and the noise might disturbe neighbors.”
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