Jim Collins
- Greatness is a conscious choice.
- Most overnight successes are about 20 years in the making.
- The discipline of the flywheel is hard to get going. It took Sam Walton 7 years to go to 2 stores. It was 13 years before Starbucks had 5 stores.
- How do the once great fall? By overreaching…undisciplined reaching for more. They become seduced by their own success and they derail the flywheel.
- Don’t let growth get out ahead of your ability to have the right people on your bus.
- If you get the right “who’s” you will get the right “what’s.”
- The question is not whether you are a leader, but are you a level 5 leader or a level 4 leader? The key characteristic of level 5 CEO leaders found in the greatest Fortune 500 firms is one word: HUMILITY. They didn’t have weakness, but were truly ambitious for the company and it’s sake, not themselves. They would endure whatever it took for the company. If it is about you, you will not build something great!
- Level 5 leadership is not about personality. You can be weird and be a level 5.
- Churches have become very dependent upon a powerful personality. That is very irresponsible. The report card comes in after you are gone and how the flywheel continues to turn.
- Do you have a to-do list? Do you have a stop-doing list? If you don’t, you have a lack of discipline.
- We can change the practices but keep the values. That is what is happening in church denominational life.
- Every generation needs to create its own practices. These practices will show the common thread that still connects all generations. (this is great for church life)
- Free tool at www.jimcollins.com. It’s a free diagnostic tool for your life.
- Do you have a personal board of directors? (not organizational but personal; every organization should have these but personal?)
- Get young people in your face. You do want the right young people in your face, though. The commanding leader at Westpoint recently said, “This is the most aspiring group and generation of cadets to come to Westpoint since 1945.” Our generation needs to move over and let you lead.
- What is the ratio of how many questions you ask versus how many statements you make? Can you double it?
- Do not spend 5 years getting 2 years worth of experience.
- Create white-space days- those days when you think for one day without any interruption. Turn off all electronic gadgets. Work is infinite, you’ll never finish it. If you think you can, you will have a nervous breakdown.
- Greatness is not a function of circumstances, but a conscious choice and discipline.
- If you have the right people in your organization, they don’t need to be managed. If you have to manage them, you have made a hiring mistake.
- Greatness is not succeeding. Greatness is doing your best and making good choices that are never on display.
- You pay your mentors back by mentoring others.
- Go make yourself useful!
