Jim Collins, a renowned researcher, author, and speaker on business management and leadership, has provided invaluable insights into what makes great companies endure. His work, including seminal books like "Good to Great," "Built to Last," and "Great by Choice," has produced a wealth of actionable principles for leaders.
On Leadership and People
- "Good is the enemy of great."[1][2][3][4] - Good to Great. This is the opening line of the book and its central theme, arguing that the comfort of being good prevents organizations from making the necessary changes to become great.
- "Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It's not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious–but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves."[2] - Good to Great. This quote defines the essential characteristic of the leaders who can take a company from good to great.
- "The most important executive decision is not 'what,' but 'who.'" - Good to Great. This emphasizes the principle of "First Who, Then What," prioritizing getting the right people on the team before setting a direction.
- "Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats."[5] - Good to Great. This memorable analogy illustrates the "First Who, Then What" concept.
- "Great vision without great people is irrelevant."[3][4][6] - Good to Great. This underscores the necessity of having a talented and dedicated team to execute any vision.
- "The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you've made a hiring mistake."[1][3][4] - Good to Great. Collins argues that the right people are self-motivated and don't require micromanagement.
- "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."[3][4] - Good to Great. This highlights the corrosive effect of tolerating underperformers.
- "A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people."[3][4] - Good to Great. This advises against growing so fast that you compromise on the quality of your team.
- "True leadership only exists when people follow when they would otherwise have the freedom to not follow."[7] - This speaks to the essence of voluntary and inspirational leadership.
- "Level 5 leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless."[2] - Good to Great. This captures the paradoxical nature of the most effective leaders.
On Strategy and Vision
- "The Hedgehog Concept: a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of three circles: 1) what you are deeply passionate about, 2) what you can be the best in the world at, and 3) what drives your economic engine."[8] - Good to Great. This is a core framework for finding a company's unique and powerful strategic focus.
- "BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal): A huge, daunting, and audacious goal that serves as a unifying focal point of effort, often for a decade or more."[7][9] - Built to Last. BHAGs are meant to energize and focus the entire organization.
- "Confront the brutal facts (yet never lose faith)."[8][10] - Good to Great. This is the essence of the Stockdale Paradox, named after Admiral Jim Stockdale, who survived years as a prisoner of war.
- "Bad decisions made with good intentions are still bad decisions."[1][2][4] - This highlights the importance of rigorous thinking and facing reality over wishful thinking.
- "The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline."[1][2] - Good to Great. Collins argues that with disciplined people, you need less bureaucracy.
- "It is more important to know who you are than where you are going, for where you are going will change as the world around you changes."[5] - This emphasizes the importance of a strong core ideology.
- "Visionary companies make some of their best moves by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and—quite literally—accident. What looks in retrospect like brilliant foresight and preplanning was often the result of 'Let's just try a lot of stuff and keep what works.'" - Built to Last. This quote challenges the myth of perfect, top-down strategic planning.
- "Clock Building, Not Time Telling."[11][12] - Built to Last. Great companies focus on building an organization that can endure and adapt over time, rather than relying on a single charismatic leader or a single great idea.
- "Preserve the Core / Stimulate Progress."[12][13][14] - Built to Last. This is the fundamental dynamic of enduring great companies: holding true to core values while constantly innovating and improving.
- "Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you."[4] - This is a warning to charismatic leaders about the dangers of their own influence.
On Discipline and Execution
- "A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness."[1][2][6] - Good to Great. Discipline is presented as a cornerstone of high-performing organizations.
- "The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconsistency."[15] - Great by Choice. This emphasizes the importance of consistent effort in a chosen direction.
- "The Flywheel Effect: The cumulative result of many small, well-executed actions that build upon each other over time."[16][17][18] - Good to Great and expanded in Turning the Flywheel. This concept describes how greatness is achieved through persistent, incremental effort.
- "There is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, the process resembled relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel in one direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond." - Good to Great. This further explains the Flywheel concept.
- "Stop Doing List." - Good to Great. Great companies are as disciplined about what they stop doing as they are about what they start doing.
- "Fire bullets, then cannonballs."[15] - Great by Choice. This principle advocates for first testing ideas on a small scale (bullets) before committing significant resources (cannonballs).
- "The 20 Mile March."[19][20] - Great by Choice. This concept emphasizes the importance of consistent performance, hitting your marks day in and day out, regardless of external conditions.
- "Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline."[1][2][3][4] - This is a central tenet of Collins' work.
- "Productive paranoia."[5] - Great by Choice. The best leaders are constantly aware of potential threats and prepare for them.
- "Innovation without discipline leads to disaster."[5][6] - This quote highlights the need to channel creativity within a disciplined framework.
On Life and Meaning
- "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."[1][2][3][4] - This connects the principles of great companies to the pursuit of a great life.
- "Spend the vast majority of your time with people you love and respect—people you really enjoy being on the bus with and who will never disappoint you."[1][2] - This extends the "who" principle to one's personal life.
- "It occurs to me, Jim, that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don't you invest more time being interested?"[2][4] - Advice Collins received from his mentor, which he often shares.
- "What separates people...is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life."[3][4] - This speaks to the importance of resilience.
- "The best students are those who never quite believe their professors."[1] - This encourages a mindset of questioning and independent thinking.
Additional Key Learnings
- Technology as an Accelerator, Not a Creator. Great companies use technology to accelerate their momentum, but technology itself is not the cause of their greatness.[10]
- The "Doom Loop." In contrast to the flywheel, comparison companies often fall into a "doom loop" of reactive decisions and inconsistent actions.[16][17]
- Homegrown Management. Visionary companies are more likely to promote leaders from within, ensuring cultural continuity.[11][14]
- More Than Profits. Enduring great companies are driven by a core purpose beyond just making money.[9][13][14]
- Cult-like Cultures. Visionary companies have strong cultures that some people thrive in and others don't, creating a tight-knit and aligned team.[9]
- No "Right" Core Values. The specific content of a company's core values is less important than the fact that they have them and live by them.[9][14]
- Return on Luck. Great companies get a higher return on their luck, both good and bad, than their mediocre counterparts.[7]
- SMaC Recipe. A "Specific, Methodical, and Consistent" set of operating practices that creates a replicable and consistent formula for success.[15]
- Lead with Questions, Not Answers. A key practice for confronting the brutal facts is to engage in dialogue and debate.[10]
- Conduct Autopsies, Without Blame. A method for learning from mistakes and ensuring they don't happen again.[10]
- First Who, Then What applies to your personal life. Who you marry is the most important decision.
- The importance of a personal "stop doing" list. To create space for what's truly important.
- An organization is not truly great, if it cannot be great without you.[6] This speaks to the leader's ultimate responsibility to build an enduring institution.
- Clarity brings focus. Focus accelerates progress.[6] A concise statement on the power of strategic clarity.
- If your mission doesn't stir emotion, it won't create movement.[6] This emphasizes the need for an inspiring purpose.
Sources
