The right people are your most important asset

Maintain unwavering faith and confront the most brutal facts of your current reality

Good is the enemy of great

The best students are those who never quite believe their professors

One ought not to reject the data merely because one does not like what the data implies

"You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit" Harry S. Truman

I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job" Darwin Smith

Blend extreme personal humility with intense professional will

Level 1: Highly capable individual (makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills, and good work habits), level 2: contributing team member (contributes individual capabilities and works effectively with others in a group setting), level 3: competent manager (organizes people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives), level 4: effective leader (catalyexews commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision, stimulating higher performance standards), level 5: executive (builds enfuring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and preofessional will)

their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves

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

Unwavering resolve to do what must be done

fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce results

Once you make a decision, never waver, never doubt, and never second-guess

Focus more on what you build, create, and contribute, rather than getting fame, fortune, adulation, power, or whatever

More of a plow horse than a show horse

Level 5 leaders look out the window to attribute success to factors other than themselves

When things go poorly, they look in the mirror and blame themselves, taking full responsibility

Ten of eleven good-to-great CEOs came from inside the company

Level 5 leads attribute much of their success to good luck, rather than personal greatness

There are going to be times when we can't wait for somebody. Now, you're either on the bus or off the bus

If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we'll figure out how to take it someplace great

If you begin with "who" rather than "what" you can more easily adapt to a changing world

You get the best people, build them into the best managers in the industry, and you accept the fact that some of them will be recruited to become CEOs of other companies

I don't know where we should take this company, but I do know that isf I start with the right people, ask them the right questions, and engage them in vigorous debate, we will find a way to make this company great

If you have the right executives on the bus, they will do everything within their power to build a great company, not because of what they will "get" for it, but because they simply cannot imagine settling for anything less

The right people will do the right things and deliver the best results they're capable of, regardless of the incentive system

Create an environment where hardworking people would thrive and lazy workers would either jump or get thrown right off the bus

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

When in doubt, don't hire

Keep lookig

When you know you need to make a people change, act

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

Let's take the time to make rigorous A+ selections right up front. If we get it right, we will do everything we can to try to keep them on board for a long time. If we make a mistake, then we will confront that fact so that we can get on with our work and they can get on with their lives

Would you hire the person again? Would you feel disappointed or secretly relieved if they left?

Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems

No matter what we achieve, if we don't spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we cannot possibly have a great life

Lead with questions, not answers

Engage is dialogue and debate, not coercion

Coduct autopsies, without blame

Never lose faith in the end of the story

Never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality

Know thyself - Plato

It doesn't matter how complex the world, a hedgehog reduces all challenges and dilemmas to simple, indeed almost simplistic, hedgehog ideas

Anything that does not somehow relate to the hedgehog idea holds no relevance

See what is essential and ignore the rest

Look, it just wasn't that complicated! Once we understood the concept, we just moved straight ahead

A Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of: 1. What you can be the best in the world at. 2. What drives your economic engine. 3. What you are deeply passionate about

The hedgehog concept is an understanding of what you can be the best at

you can have a competence at something but not necessarily have the potential to be the best in the world at it

focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path to greatness

if you could pick one and only one ratio, profit per x, to systematically increase over time, what x would have the greatest and most sustainable impact on your economic engine?

have a denominator for the sake of gaining insight that ultimately leads to more robust and sustainable economics

we shoukd only do those things that we can get passionate about

if you have the right hedgehog concept and make decisions relentlessly consistent with it, you will create such momentum that your main problem will not be how to grow, but how not to grow too fast

dusciplined action only makes sense in the context of the hedgehog concept

a hedgehog concept simplifies a complex world and makes decisions much easier

getting a hedgehog concept is an inherently iterative process, not an event

Get the right people engaged in vigorous dialog and debate, infused with the brutal facts and guided by questions formed by the three circles. Do we really understand what we can be the best in the world at, as distinct from what we can just be successful at? Do we really understand the drivers in our economic engine, including our economic denominator? Do we really understand what best ignited our passion?

There must be something we can become the best at, and we will find it! We must also confront the brutal facts of what we cannot be the best at, and we will not delude ourselves

Entrepreneurial success is fueled by creativity, imagination, bold moves into uncharted waters, and visionary zeal

Avoid bureaucracy and hierarchy and instead create a culture of discipline

You never just focus on what you've accomplished for the year; you focus on what you've accomplished relative to what you said you were going to accomplish

Build a culture around the idea of freedom and responsibility, within a framework

The point is to first get self-disciplined people who engage in very rigorous thinking, who then take disciplined action within the framework of a consistent system designed around the Hedgehog Concept

Everyone would like to be the best, but most organizations lack the discipline to figure out with egoless clarity what they can be the best at and the will to do whatever it takes to turn that potential into reality

Would you spend your own momney this way?

Most men would rather die than think. Many do.

Calm deliberate pursuit of understanding followed by calm deliberate steps forward

Technology is an important force of change and you better pay attention to it

When used right technology becomes an Excelerator of momentum not a creator of it

Never talk in reactionary terms and never define your strategies principally in response to what others are doing. Talk in terms of what you are trying to create and how you are trying to improve relative to an absolute standard of excellence

We are never satisfied. We can be delighted but never satisfied

Those who turn good into grade are motivated by deep creative urge in an inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for it on sake. Those who build and perpetuate media Chrissy and contrast are motivated more by the fear of being left behind

Good to great comes about by a cumulative process step-by-step action by action decision by decision turn by turn of the flywheel that adds up to sustained in spectacular results

Tremendous power exists in the fact of continued improvement in the delivery of results

Under the right conditions problems of commitment alignment motivation and change meltaway

Confront the brutal facts to see clearly what steps must be taken to build momentum momentum leads to breakthroughs

Follow the pattern of discipline people discipline thought discipline action

Make major acquisitions after break through to accelerate momentum

Maintain consistency over time each generation builds on the work of previous generations the fly will continues to build momentum

It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction Pablo Picasso

Core values are essential for enduring greatness but it does not seem to matter what does quarter values are

Preserve your core values and core purpose. Change cultural and operating practices and specific goals and strategies

This company is built on the idea that work is fine. If you are not passionate about what we do here and go find something else to do

It is impossible do you have a great life unless it is a meaningful life