LUNCH WITH THE FT: Straight from Jim Collins
The management guru believes ‘Big Hairy Audacious Goals’ are key to greatness in business. Over osso buco in London, he tells Andrew Hill why BHAGS aren’t BS, shares the secrets of ‘monk mode’ and says missing ‘the most important thing’ is what scares him
Jim Collins is telling the story of his grandfather, role model and namesake Jimmy Collins, "a truly heroic figure" who was a test pilot in the 1930s -and not just any test pilot. Jimmy also wrote a bestseller, published posthumously after he crashed. "The thing about the right stuff is the people who have the right stuff don’t just live cool, they die cool," Collins says. That must have been a lot for your father to live up to, I venture. "My father was a very different character," he says carefully. "He was an artist, and he died young, aged 48, and was kind of. .. I would just simply sum it up as: ‘Being a parent was not his hedgehog’." This exchange, about 25 minutes into our lunch at Murano, in London’s Mayfair, also sums up what readers love, or loathe, about Collins’ work. One of the world’s best-known and best-selling management writers, the former McKinsey consultant and Stanford lecturer has created a large, loyal following -and a rival band of vehement critics -with his ...
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