James C. Collins Quotes

People do what they think works for them, but the sport is about instinct, movement, balance, power... it's too animalistic to get rigid about your training.

There is no perfect fit when you're looking for the next big thing to do. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you, rather than the other way around. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.

Over the years, the U.S. economy has shown a remarkable ability to absorb shocks of all kinds, to recover, and to continue to grow. Flexible and efficient markets for labor and capital, an entrepreneurial tradition, and a general willingness to tolerate and even embrace technological and economic change all contribute to this resiliency.

For new ideas to be translated into new realities requires not only clarity of vision but also the opportunity to change old realities.

Imagination of my kind is most caught, most fired, most worked upon by the unfamiliar: I have thrivenon the changes and chances, the dislocations andcontrasts which have made up so much of my life.

There's an ability to learn & adapt, an ability to constantly have a vision that's driving you, but to be taking input from all sources.

You can’t look too far ahead. Do that and you’ll lose sight of what you’re doing and stumble. I’m not saying you should focus solely on the details right in front of you, mind you. You’ve got to look ahead a bit or else you’ll bump into something. You’ve got to conform to the proper order and at the same time keep an eye out for what’s ahead. That’s critical, no matter what you’re doing.

We want to be open-minded enough to accept radial new ideas when they occasionally come along, but we don't want to be so open-minded that our brains fall out.

The great thing about the dilemma we're in is that we get to re-imagine every single thing we do...There isn't a single thing that doesn't require a complete remake. There are two ways of looking at that. One is: Oh my gosh, what a big burden. The other way, which I prefer, is: What a great time to be born! What a great time to be alive! Because this generation gets to essentially completely change the world.

Strong communities ... embrace change. New discoveries require us to think differently and approach things differently, to think anew.

Progress and growth are impossible if you always do things the way you've always done things.

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants. A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is.

Never accept or be too comfortable with the status quo, because the companies that get into trouble are historically the ones that aren't able to adapt to change and respond quickly enough.

If you don't look ahead, you'll always be behind.

I try to have things change before I get bored, and I figure other people might enjoy that too; I try not to let anything repeat for long enough that you can get used to it.

The single biggest reason companies fail is they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be.

Pure pragmatism can't imagine a bold future. Pure idealism can't get anything done. It is the delicate blend of both that drives innovation.

The best genius is that which absorbs and assimilates everything without doing the least violence to its fundamental destiny.

We can no longer stand at the end of something we visualized in detail and plan backwards from that future. Instead we must stand at the beginning, clear in our mind, with a willingness to be involved in discovery... it asks that we participate rather than plan.

Build what you want to see in the world.

The point is, you can't keep doing the same thing and expect it to keep working.

if we don't begin by imagining the perfect society, how shall we create one?

One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it.

In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.

When the going gets tough, the tough reinvent.