Power Point: Make a "stop-doing" list

• Most Admired Companies know their values

  by Jessica Shambora

  For Fortune's Most Admired Companies issue, released this week, I interviewed the CEOs of two top performers: Bill Weldon at Johnson & Johnson (No. 5 on the list) and Jim Skinner at McDonald's (No. 16). Fortune ranks companies based on survey results from more than 4,000 executives, directors and securities analysts.

  My interviews with these chiefs covered a range of topics, from cosmetic surgery to the Dollar Menu. But MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Mar 5, 2009 3:02 PM ET
  Posted in: Bill Weldon, Brands, CEOs, General Electric, IBM, Jim Collins, Jim Skinner, Johnson & Johnson, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, McDonald's, Most Admired Companies, Postcards, Procter & Gamble, Values, Warren Buffett

• Reinvent your firm, not your values

  Reinvent!

  Every manager is supposed be doing that these days. You know, there's a lot more risk in reinvention than just the uncertainty of your fancy new business model. In your rush to reinvent, you could well leave your core values behind.

  I've been contemplating this lately for several reasons. For one, I'm sold on the wisdom of Jim Collins, the management guru who was part of a recent Fortune cover package MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Feb 23, 2009 2:38 PM ET
  Posted in: airlines, Brands, CEOs, consumer goods, eBay, Howard Schultz, IBM, Jim Collins, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Meg Whitman, Postcards, Procter & Gamble, restaurants, retail, Roy Spence, Sam Walton, Silicon Valley, Southwest, Starbucks, technology, Wal-Mart

• Power Point: Use the crisis as a defining event

  "You have to say that we will be in this for a long time and we will turn this into a defining event, a big catalyst to make ourselves a much stronger enterprise. Our characters are being forged in a burning, searing crucible."

  – Jim Collins, management guru and author of Built to Last and Good to Great, in a Q&A with Fortune's Jennifer Reingold. The crucible Collins refers to got MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Feb 19, 2009 7:45 PM ET
  Posted in: Dow, Jim Collins, management, Postcards, Power Point, stock market, Wall Street

• Power Point: Values are key to survival

  "The more challenged you are, the more you have to have your values."

  -- Jim Collins, management guru and author of Built to Last and Good to Great, in a Q&A in the current issue of Fortune. As he notes, companies like Procter & Gamble (PG), General Electric (GE), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), and IBM (IBM) have an incredible fabric of values--underlying ideals that explain why the companies exist. Even more MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jan 22, 2009 6:25 PM ET
  Posted in: GE, General Electric, IBM, Jim Collins, jnj, johnson, Johnson & Johnson, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, P&G, Postcards, Power Point, procter, Procter & Gamble

• CEO apologies and other true confessions

  'Tis the season for confessions. First comes denial -- every mortal's classic response in a crisis. But in times like these, any leader worth his or her lofty position and pay recognizes mistakes soon enough. True confession is the mark of a confident leader. So, what's your biggest mistake?

  In the past week alone, we've noticed a positive trend: leaders fessing up. "GM has made mistakes in the past," General Motors MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Dec 8, 2008 2:11 PM ET
  Posted in: airlines, apology, auto industry, banks, boards, Bob Rubin, CEOs, Citigroup, confessions, David Neeleman, Detroit, Failure, finance, FRank Rich, Frost/Nixon, General Motors, GM, Iraq, JBLU, JetBlue, Jim Collins, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, mistakes, politics, Postcards, Power Shift, Rick Wagoner, Saddam Hussein, Vikram Pandit, Wall Street, Washington

• How to thrive in turbulent times

  "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste." Have you heard that line lately? Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Barack Obama's new chief of staff, recently used it. So did Merck (MRK) CEO Dick Clark, noted management guru Jim Collins, who used the line as the centerpiece of a talk at the Fortune 500 Forum in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

  Collins delivered a mega-dose of passion and pragmatic ideas, starting with the message that "good MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Dec 2, 2008 11:34 AM ET
  Posted in: Anne Mulcahy, CEOs, Circuit City, consumer goods, Disney, fannie mae, Good to Great, Hewlett-Packard, HP, IBM, Jim Collins, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, media, Motorola, Postcards, retail, technology, telecom, turbulence, turbulent times, Xerox