Good To Great Quotes

Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.

The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.

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

Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.

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. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated.

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.

By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.

The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results.

The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you’ve made a hiring mistake.

Faith in the endgame helps you live through the months or years of buildup.

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

What separates people, Stockdale taught me, is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life.

You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit. —HARRY S. TRUMAN1.

Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.

Why should we try to make it great? Isn’t success enough?.

while you can buy your way to growth, you absolutely cannot buy your way to greatness.

Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth.... That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplanted by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast. —VIKTOR E. FRANKL, Man’s Search for Meaning.