The start of the New Year is a perfect time to start a stop doing list and to make this the cornerstone of your New Year resolutions, be it for your company, your family or yourself. It also is a perfect time to clarify your three circles, mirroring at a personal level the three questions... 1) What are you deeply passionate about? 2) What are you are genetically encoded for - what activities do you feel just "made to do"? 3) What makes economic sense - what can you make a living at?
James C. CollinsThrow leaders into an extreme environment, and it will separate the stark differences between greatness and mediocrity.
James C. CollinsThe purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.
James C. CollinsI don't know where we should take this company, but I do know that if I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great.
James C. CollinsThe best CEOs in our research display tremendous ambition for their company combined with the stoic will to do whatever it takes, no matter how brutal (within the bounds of the company's core values), to make the company great. Yet at the same time they display a remarkable humility about themselves, ascribing much of their own success to luck, discipline and preparation rather than personal genius.
James C. Collins