Jim Collins on the lessons he learnt from mentor Bill Lazier

Jim Collins is one of the most successful business authors and researchers of the modern era, selling over 10 million books, and advising some of the most successful companies of the 21st century.

Considering Collins’ research, writing and consulting has been used by some of the world’s most successful businesses, it’s fascinating to look into the best lessons he had imparted on him.

In an interview with SmartCompany Plus, Collins attributes his three decades of success to his mentor Bill Lazier, who was willing to trust and back him to the hilt, and shares three of the best lessons from him.

A father figure

They met at Stanford University in the early 1990s, with Collins joining the business school as a student, and Lazier joining as a lecturer.

Lazier’s background was varied. He started out as an accountant, got his CPA, eventually leaving the accounting firm he had spent three decades working at — on the precipice of making partner — to start his own business in 1971. Some 20 years later, he stepped back from that successful business to join Stanford.

“That is where I met him, by sheer random chance,” Collins reminisces.

“Bill is the closest thing to a father I ever had. I would not be where I am in life, and would not have done any of the things that I’ve had the privilege to work on, had it not been for Bill.”

The best lessons imparted by Lazier

1. You need to go all in when you’re playing a low-odds game

   “There’s two approaches to life: paint by numbers or a blank canvas. If you paint by numbers, stay in the lines and follow the rules, you’ll have a pretty picture at the end, but it won’t be a masterpiece.

   “For a masterpiece, you need to start with a blank canvas. Bill wanted to do the blank canvas.

   “But in a low odds game, like being an entrepreneur, Bill’s wise insight was to recognise that if you don’t go all in 100% at the critical moment, your odds will go to zero.

   “I understand that intellectually, and I can explain it statistically, but it was Bill’s example that gave me the wisdom that when I was going to go on my own, I had to go all in, No backups, no fail safes, no retreat lanes.”

2. It’s about relationships, not achievements

   “Bill believed that looking at the world through the lens of people and relationships is better than transactions, growth, sales, success, or achievements.

   “People do great things, not strategies. People turn things around.

   “What’s life? Life is simply the summation of moments throughout a lifetime. And then it’s over.

   “In Bill’s view, the essence of a great life is that the vast majority of your waking hours are spent with people you want to be spending it with, doing things that you love doing.

   “All the rest is secondary. Even if you build a great company, if you build it with people you don’t like it’s not a great journey.

   “The probability of any business idea succeeding is close to zero, by virtue of the numbers. But if you have the right people, you just go onto the second, third idea until you start to get traction.

   “In every situation you’re in, you change every ‘what’ question you can into a ‘who’ question.”

3. What keeps you going for the long term

   “I jokingly say this — but I’m really not joking — I’m mid-career at 63. If I have the luck of good health, if I get to go to 90, I’m going to 90.

   “Bill kept going until his last breath at 73. I intend to be the same way.

   “But what is it that keeps me going? It’s curiosity. I am just utterly, voraciously, completely, obsessed, infected, overwhelmed and addicted to curiosity.

   “It’s far better to make a company great when it’s small.

   “But what happens when you wake up part way through life and you’re already quite a ways down the road?

   “Bill’s journey had a big impact on me later. He was on the verge of being named partner of this major, prestigious accounting firm, when he was young with a family in the 1960s. That would be like really moving up in the world. What Bill did in response was resign.

   “He worried that if he got used to being partner, he might not actually go out and carve his own path. Bill believed that the only way to really have the best life is to carve some version on your own.”