Level 5 executives "Build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will" Collins explains

Good to Great companies are like hedgehogs - "simple, dowdy creatures that knows 'one big thing' and stick to it. The comparison companies are more like foxes - crafty, cunning creatures that know many things yet lack consistency" says Collins. Good to Great companies apply the hedgehog concept to find  simplicity within three intersected circles: what you can be the best in the world at; what you are deeply passionate about; and what drives your economic engine.

"No matter how dramatic the end result, Good to Great transformations never happened in one fell swoop," says Collins. "There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break [like the Hush Puppies epidemic], no miracle moment. Rather, the process resembled relentlessly pushing a giant heavy flywheel in one direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point breakthrough, and beyond."

Good to Great leaders "first get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats - and then they figure out where to drive it." says Collins

“All companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline,” Collins explains. “When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.”

"Every Good to Great company embraced the [Vietnam POW] Stockdale Paradox: you must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end regardless of the diffifulties, and, at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be." - Collins

"Good to Great companies think differently about the role of technology," says Collins. "They never use technology as the primary means of igniting a transformation. Yet, paradoxically, they are pioneers in the application of carefully selected technologies."