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Good To Great, by Jim Collins
Facts Are Better than Dreams
Chapter 4, page 73
Winston Churchill understood the liabilities of his strong personality,
and he compensated for them beautifully during the Second World
War. Churchill, as you know, maintained a bold and unwavering
vision that Britain would not just survive, but prevail as a great
nation—despite the whole world wondering not if but when
Britain would sue for peace. During the darkest days, with nearly
all of Europe and North Africa under Nazi control, the United
States hoping to stay out of the conflict, and Hitler fighting
a one-front war (he had not yet turned on Russia), Churchill said:
“We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the
Nazi regime. From this, nothing will turn us. Nothing! We will
never parley. We will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his
gang. We shall fight him by land. We shall fight him by sea. We
shall fight him in the air. Until, with God’s help, we have
rid the earth of his shadow.”31
Armed with this bold vision, Churchill never failed, however,
to confront the most brutal facts. He feared that his towering,
charismatic personality might deter bad news from reaching him
in its starkest form. So, early in the war, he created an entirely
separate department outside the normal chain of command, called
the Statistical Office, with the principal function of feeding
him—continuously updated and completely unfiltered—the
most brutal facts of reality.32
He relied heavily on this special unit throughout the war, repeatedly
asking for facts, just the facts. As the Nazi panzers swept across
Europe, Churchill went to bed and slept soundly: “I…had
no need for cheering dreams,” he wrote. “Facts
are better than dreams.”33
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