A visionary company doesn't simply balance between idealism and profitability: it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable. A visionary company doesn't simply balance between preserving a tightly held core ideology and stimulating vigorous change and movement; it does both to an extreme.

Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.

A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness.

Not one of the good-to-great companies focused obsessively on growth.

Great companies foster a productive tension between continuity and change.

Focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path to greatness.

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.