The greatest leaders build organizations that, in the end, don't need them.

In an ironic twist, I now see Good to Great not as a sequel to Built to Last, but more of a prequel. Good to Great is about how to turn a good organization into one that produces sustained great results. Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.

The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving.

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

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.

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.

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.