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Who really said it

A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness

Written by Jim Collins b. 1958 · American business researcher and author
Verified In copyright

Confirmed in Collins’s monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking Is Not the Answer (November 2005). There he remembers giving this answer to a CEO who argued that nonprofits needed “business” discipline. The original has a semicolon where the popular version has a comma.

Last verified 1 Nov 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness” Jim Collins, Good to Great and the Social Sectors (2005)

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Still under copyright (rights held by Jim Collins). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

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Provenance

The source

Work
Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking Is Not the Answer
Author
Jim Collins
Dated
November 2005
Page
p. 1 (per Wikiquote)

“What makes you think that’s a business concept?” I replied. “Most businesses also have a desperate need for greater discipline. Mediocre companies rarely display the relentless culture of discipline—disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and who take disciplined action—that we find in truly great companies. A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness.” Introduction

Collins is replying to David Weekley, a CEO who had challenged him at a gathering of business leaders by saying nonprofits were “in desperate need of greater discipline.” The original uses a semicolon. Most quote sites print it with a comma.

Excerpts from Good to Great and the Social Sectors on jimcollins.com

How we traced it

  • The author’s own site reproduces the sentence among its excerpts from the monograph, which is dated November 2005: jimcollins.com ↗
  • An excerpt of the monograph’s opening, headed “by Jim Collins, November 2005,” gives the full exchange with David Weekley: America in Class excerpt (PDF) ↗
  • Wikiquote’s sourced section cites it to Good To Great And The Social Sectors (2005), p. 1: Wikiquote: Jim Collins ↗
  • In a Bridgespan interview dated February 1, 2006, Collins makes the same point in different words: “Discipline is not a business idea; it is a greatness idea.” Bridgespan interview ↗
In copyright

The sentence comes from Good to Great and the Social Sectors, first published in 2005. That is long after the 1931 public-domain cutoff, so the text is still under copyright. Quoting one line with credit is ordinary fair use.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What gets mixed up

The credit to Collins is correct. What drifts as the line travels is its exact wording and where it came from.

The popular comma version Punctuation

Most quote sites print “…principle of business, it is a principle of greatness.” Collins’s text has a semicolon: “…principle of business; it is a principle of greatness” (jimcollins.com ↗). The words are the same. Only the punctuation changed.

“Discipline is not a business idea; it is a greatness idea” Spoken variant

This shorter version is a real Collins line too. It comes from a separate interview dated February 1, 2006, not from the monograph (Bridgespan ↗).

Jim Collins wrote it in Good to Great and the Social Sectors (November 2005), as his own reply to a CEO’s challenge (excerpt ↗).

Context

Why he said it

The monograph begins by rejecting the idea that the main path to greatness for nonprofits, schools and other social-sector groups is to become “more like a business.” Collins argues that most businesses are only mediocre or good, so copying business habits in general can mean copying mediocrity.

When he made that case to a room of business CEOs, David Weekley pushed back: nonprofits needed “greater discipline.” Collins’s reply was this line. Discipline, he said, is not something business owns. It is what separates great organizations from good ones in any sector.

A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Work Success Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Good to Great and the Social Sectorsjimcollins.com

The author’s own page for the monograph, with excerpts that include this sentence.
Monograph excerpt (PDF)americainclass.org

The opening pages, dated November 2005, with the full exchange between Collins and Weekley.
Jim Collins on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced entry citing the monograph (2005), p. 1.
Interview with Jim Collinsbridgespan.org

A February 2006 interview in which Collins restates the idea as “Discipline is not a business idea; it is a greatness idea.”
Quotes from the monographgoodreads.com

Lists the line with its original semicolon under the monograph’s title.

The author

About Jim Collins

Jim Collins

b. 1958 · American business researcher, author & consultant

James C. “Jim” Collins is an American researcher and author who writes about what makes organizations last and grow. He is best known for Built to Last (1994, with Jerry I. Porras) and Good to Great (2001). In 2005 he followed up with a short monograph, Good to Great and the Social Sectors, that applies the same framework to nonprofits, schools, hospitals and government.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Collins, Jim. Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking Is Not the Answer. November 2005, p. 1.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness’?” Last verified 1 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/a-culture-of-discipline-is-not-a-principle-of-business-it/

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