“The Moment You Begin to Think of Yourself as Great, You've Lost It”

When we were doing the research on Good to Great, I remember vividly an interview with one of the CEOs, who seemed genuinely disappointed that they were in the book—genuinely disappointed that we would label them as “good to great.” In fact, he wished that we would take them out of the book. 

As I listened to him describe his discomfort with all the people in the company looking at a book that says, “You’re great,” I realized that the key to greatness is never thinking you are. He understood that the moment that you begin to think of yourself as great, you’ve lost it. The key word, the key driving force in greatness, is to always look to do better. No matter how much you have achieved, no matter how far you’ve gone, you will always be merely good relative to what you can do next.

Copyright © 2017 Jim Collins, All rights reserved.