Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73794 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
This analysis of what makes great companies great has been hailed everywhere as an instant classic and one of the best business titles since In Search of Excellence. The authors, James C Collins and Jerry I Porras, spent six years in research, and they freely admit that their own preconceptions about business success were devastated by their actual findings--along with the preconceptions of virtually everyone else.

Built to Last identifies 18 "visionary" companies and sets out to determine what's special about them. To get on the list, a company had to be world famous, have a stellar brand image, and be at least 50 years old. We're talking about companies that even a layperson knows to be, well, different: the Disneys, the Wal-Marts, the Mercks.

Whatever the key to the success of these companies, the key to the success of this book is that the authors don't waste time comparing them to business failures. Instead, they use a control group of "successful-but-second-rank" companies to highlight what's special about their 18 "visionary" picks. Thus Disney is compared to Columbia Pictures, Ford to GM, Hewlett Packard to Texas Instruments, and so on. The core myth, according to the authors, is that visionary companies must start with a great product and be pushed into the future by charismatic leaders. There are examples of that pattern, they admit: Johnson & Johnson, for one. But there are also just too many counter-examples--in fact, the majority of the "visionary" companies, including giants such as 3M, Sony, and TI, don't fit the model. They were characterised by total lack of an initial business plan or key idea and by remarkably self-effacing leaders. Collins and Porras are much more impressed with something else they shared: an almost cult-like devotion to a "core ideology" or identity, and active indoctrination of employees into "ideologically commitment" to the company.

The comparison with the business "B" team does tend to raise a significant methodological problem: which companies are to be counted as "visionary" in the first place? There's an air of circularity here, as if you achieve "visionary" status by ... achieving visionary status. So many roads lead to Rome that the book is less practical than it might appear. But that's exactly the point of an eloquent chapter on 3M. This wildly successful company had no master plan, little structure, and no prima donnas. Instead it had an atmosphere in which bright people were both keen to see the company succeed and unafraid to "try a lot of stuff and keep what works." --Richard Farr

Customer Reviews

How to Sustain Success
The concept behind this book is brilliant: Find out what makes companies that outperform their peers for decades enjoy that success.

The most important lesson of this book is to create lasting ways of managing your business successfully that will outlive the skills and perspective of any one person, no matter how talented.

The book is fun to read. I liked the way the ideas were described: "Big, hairy, audacious goals" is a fun concept just from the title.

One of the most useful ideas is that we need to hold conflicting ideas in our minds, such as "do more" and "spend less". English often suggests that conflicts exist in what can be done that do not really exist in practice.

This book is outstanding for "telling it like it is". Of particular interest to investors will be the stock-price charts showing how valuable these lessons are for public companies and their shareholders.

The work is a little dated in that it is looking at lessons that were the causes of success decades ago. Also, the book is most relevant to new companies rather than established ones.

None of the companies profiled here ended up being an important source of busines model innovation in the 21st century, so you'll have to find that information from more recent research.

Collins J & Porras J, (1997), Built to Last
Collins J & Porras J, (1997), Built to Last

The book is very much a research book with a view to capture why these visionary organisations are successful. At least 114 pages are devoted to research information or methodology, pages 1 - 21 and 240 - 333.

Page 19 - This must be one of the very first books to examine the entire organisations history for all 36 organisations. The average life span being 96 years, over 60,000 - 100,000 pages of documents examined, over 100 books read and so much more were taken into account when researching Built to Last during a 6-year period.

Page 3 - The book examines the 18 most successful / visionary organisations that have been identified through fellow CEO / executives from research undertaken based on the: Fortune 500 industrial companies, Fortune 500 service companies, Inc. 500 private companies and Inc. 100 public companies - Page 13.

Page 13 - The next stage was to find organisations within the same industry to compare on a like for like basis, to help understand why these visionary organisations are what they have become today, a "super organisation". In total, the book examines 36 organisations.

Page 27 - Not all the visionary organisation were initially successful during their entrepreneur period (results on page 274), in fact out of the 18 visionary organisations only 3 were more successful than their comparisons; Johnson & Johnson, Ford, GE (Page 22). This means 10 comparisons organisations were more successful than the visionary organisation. Leaving 5 organisations being indistinguishable - probably due to lack of information, see page 254.

Page 91 - Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG) - To have audacious goals (clearly understood by all) that seem beyond achievement, but these should correspond with the organisations core purpose - examples can be viewed on Page 113. The BHAG are used to stimulate progress, i.e. GE - To become #1 or #2 in every market we serve.....", Sony - "To change the image around the world of Japanese products as poor in quality"

Page 140 - Try A lot of Stuff & Keep What Works - Johnson & Johnson were originally selling medical plasters until a complaint was received when the plasters being used caused irritation. Research was done by J & J and the baby talc was born as a separate product. But 3M is the really example of the visionary organisation in this chapter.

Page 140 - The use of Darwin theory of evolution has been applied as a way to describe these visionary organisations. The 3M evolutionary tree as seen on page 154 is an example. 3M started as a mining company than went into sandpaper / grinding wheels. From here set up a research lab to experiment and test new ideas / products.

Page 169 - Home Grown Management - Visionary organisations promote within the organisation into management positions. Only two visionary organisations (Philip Morris and Walt Disney) compared with 13 comparison organisations have used outsiders in a CEO role in a period between 1808 to 1992 - Page 174

Interesting Quotes -

Don Petersen, Former CEO, Ford, 1994 - "Putting profits after people and products was magical at Ford" - Page 46.

John Young, HP Chief executive 1976 - 1992 -"Maximising shareholder wealth has always been way down the list...........There is a symmetry of logic in this. If we provide real satisfaction to real customers - we will be profitable" - Page 57

The Book in General

The core aspect of the book is to understand the core values and core purposes, the combination of these two factors suggest how these visionary organisations have become successful. These visionary organisations share the same common thoughts / concepts throughout their history, a good example of this is Merick's - they first coined the term core value in 1935 (Page 47) and in 1991 the present managers are still singing the same tune 65 years later. Marriott can be seen as an example of consistency, J Marriott Snr. in 1965 stated three statements, in 1984 J Marriott Jnr. also stated three statements not too dissimilar to those 19 years earlier.

Page 254 - One negative aspect of the books is the biased towards US orientated organisations, out of the 36 organisations only two were non-US, Sony & Kenwood. The authors do acknowledge the quality and quantity of the information gained could distort the over results which the book is based upon.

Other Issues

I would conclude this book is certainly interesting and could foresee further research undertaken on this subject area. I would like to see what the difference is between these 18 visionary organisations compared with 18 "modern-day equivalent" visionary organisations from the same industries using global organisations (not just the US orientated organisations), such as Microsoft, Virgin, Easy Jet or Tesco.

The authors could test their evidence / views gained from the research of the 18 visionary organisations and determine if the "modern-day equivalents" will still be existing 96 yrs later and be able to call themselves a "super company" as demonstrated by these 18 organisations.

Overall, An excellent book. A recommended read if you want to know if your organisation shares similar characteristics to these 18 visionary organisations.

enjoyed listening
I am referring to the audio tape version of the book which i enjoyed a lot. Apparently James C. Collins, Jerry I. Porras did a very long analytical research before they strarted. You learn new things and you learn new ways of looking into things. You discover why visionary companies stay forever. Money seems to be everything in our lives and it is the reason for these companies' existence however it is not what drives these visionary compnaies. I hope to read the book because i feel that i missed a lot in the tape. The authors explain themselves in a very simple way. they summarize their ideas and findings in points and then they explain each of them thoroughly. they show you comparisons among these companies and among companies that are very strong and known but not visionary.