Product Description

'This is not a book about charismatic visionary leaders. It is not about visionary product concepts or visionary products or visionary market insights. Nor is it about just having a corporate vision. This is a book about something far more important, enduring, and substantial. This is a book about visionary companies.' Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Collins and Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied each company in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day - as start-ups, as midsize companies and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: 'What makes the truly exceptional companies different from other companies?' Filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, "Built to Last" provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the twenty-first century and beyond.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6918 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 342 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

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 counterexamples--in fact, the majority of the "visionary" companies, including giants like 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 "ideological 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, Amazon.com

Review
"* 'One of the most eye-opening business studies since In Search of Excellence.' - Kevin Maney, USA Today * 'Built to Last is an unusual business book - seriously researched, unconventional in its conclusions...[It] is well worth reading, particularly by those engaged in trying to reinvigorate our nation's largest enterprises.' - Richard J. Tofel, Wall Street Journal * 'In Built to Last, Collins and Porras present a brilliant and lucid analysis and, yes, a blueprint for organizational excellence. It should be required reading.' - Warren Bennis"

Customer Reviews

Vision = Core Ideology + Envisioned Future
James Collins is a management researcher from Boulder (Colorado, USA) and Jerry Porras is a professor of organizational behavior and change at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. This book is really split up into three parts: (1) An introduction into the research.; (2) The core ideology of visionary companies.; (3) The habits of visionary companies; (4) Methods for implementation.

The authors explain their research methods of this six-year research project into visionary companies. "Visionary companies are premier institutions - the crown jewels - in their industries, widely admired by their peers and having a long track record of making a significant impact on the world around them." The authors used the term 'visionary', rather than just 'successful' or 'enduring', to reflect the fact they have distinguished themselves as a very special and elite breed of institutions. In order to compose these visionary companies the authors started with a set of criteria which those companies had to meet: (1) Premier institution in its industry; (2) widely admired by knowledgeable businesspeople; (3) made an indelible imprint on the world in which we live; (4) had multiple generations of chief executives; (5) been through multiple product (or service) life cycles; (6) founded before 1950. With these criteria in mind the authors select 18 visionary companies from a wide range of industries, plus 18 comparison companies (which are not weak or bad companies either).

So what do these visionary companies have in common? They have core ideologies consisting of more than a bunch of nice-sounding platitudes. A visionary company's core ideology consists of core values ("The organization's essential and enduring tenets") and purpose ("The organization's fundamental reasons for existence beyond just making money"). But the authors comment that ocre ideology alone cannot make a visionary company. Ultimately, a visionary company is build up from a core ideology complemented with a drive for progress and a preservation of the core complemented with a stimulation for progress.

The authors then turn their attention to the specific methods of preserving the core and stimulating progress that distinguishes visionary companies from the comparison companies. They split these methods up into: (1) Big hairy audaciou goals (BHAGs) ("Commitment to challenging, audicious goals and projects toward which a visionary company channels its efforts."); (2) Cult-like cultures ("Great places to work only for those who buy in to the core ideology; those who don't fit the ideology are ejected like a virus (preserves the core)."); (3)Try a lot of stuff and keep what works ("High levels of action and experimentation that produce new and unexpected paths of progress and enables visionary companies to mimic the biological evolution of specias (stimulates progress)."); (4) Home-grown management ("Promotion from within, bringing to senior levels only those who've spent significant time steeped in the coe ideology of the company (preserves the core)."); and (5) Good enough never is ("A continual process of relentless self-improvement with the aim of doing better and better, forever into the future (stimulate progress).")

In the final chapters the authors provide a summary of the book, which they refer to as the vision framework: Articulating a vision = core ideology (core values and core purpose) + envisioned future (10 to 30 year BHAG and vivid descriptions). There are also some tools to create all these items in this framework. In this 3rd edition there is also 'a message for the new economy' in which the authors conclude that the dot-com craze is based on 'Built to Flip' and not 'Built to Last' ideas. They provide some questions for to check whether your organization is built to last or built to flip. This chapter is a waste paper.

I honestly cannot believe that I read this book just a month after I read Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman's 'In Search of Excellence' (1982). They have so much in common, it is uncanny - habits, example companies, research methods, etc. I must admit that I prefer Peters and Waterman's book better, but I can understand if readers do not feel that way. Nevertheless, this is a good book into the habits of successful companies, although the habits are somewhat 'soft', and difficult to implement in existing companies. The biggest criticism McKinsey & Co had on this book: "We really love 'Built to Last' here, but unfortunately it's useless. ... all the companies in 'Built to Last' were always great. They were never average. But that's most of the world." As an reply to this criticism Collins has recently written 'Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't' (2001). My greatest criticism on this book is the amount of repetition and therefore I recommend others to go for the e-articles 'Build Your Company's Vision' and 'Turning Goals into Results', both by the authors of this book. I also recommend Jim Collins' latest article 'Level 5 Leadership' (2001) which is based on his latest book 'Good to Great'. This book is written in simple US-English.

One of the few business books with a lifespan
This is a business book that has "legs". Contains some classic concepts (BHAGs...) and explodes some great myths. A book to return to over time, that is well researched and based on something a lot more more solid that the authors egos. Recommended for even the most jaded biz book reader.

Inspiring, but missing the deeper analytical level.
This is an inspiring book, and informative. It answers the "what" question convincingly. I missed answers to the "why" questions. Why, for example, are successful visionary companies characterized by their emphasis on ethical standards? There are many possible explanations: the staff of the company are inspired by the ideals and give more to their employer; the companies reap payoffs in the long term from grateful recipients of their honorable deeds; the companies acquire a good reputation which increases sales and hence profits. More interesting, is the question of the logic of ethics in the business game - not even touched by these authors.

According to Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, it does not matter what the company ideology is, as long as it is passionately believed by the management and employees. I find this a dubious claim, and not supported by the data. The ideological frameworks of the companies that were studied are not interchangeable, not for the trivial reason that the ideology of another company happens not to be the one believed by each of them. Boeing is unlikely to spend money on a program to cure river blindness in Africa. Why does Merck do this? Clearly, a pharmaceutical firm does well to invest in a reputation for medical generosity that flows from a passion for making people well? Merck is purchasing precisely the trust that pays-off in the medical market place. Trust reduces transaction costs, and in some cases is almost as good as a monopoly. Boeing, on the other hand, must buy a brand name attached to their dedication to engineering excellence. It does matter what companies are passionate about.

My company operates on the Internet. Our pledge includes the words: "The tragedy of the commons is the propensity of users to take more from the commons than they give. We undertake to contribute more to the commons than we take. Our presence shall make the Internet safer, more useful and greater fun." Why is this a suitable ideology for our company? The answer is not that this is one we happen to believe in, and feel passionate about - although we do. Rather, this ideology is strategically fitting. We enhance to our brand name, and therefore the value of our software, by adding our reputation to the web applications we write.

In one of our daughter businesses we are a broker of information from merchants to consumer (information about products that are available) and from consumer to merchant (we generate real time demand curves for a large range of commodities). We have pledged not to become a trader. Why? In ethical terms, we should not be a trader because our insider information would give rise to conflict of interest. The trust that we gain by not being a trader, and hence remaining a disinterested supplier of market information, enables us to broker Coasian agreements with reduced transaction costs between the parties on the Internet. The advantage is large. It is on the Internet commons that trust is scarce. We are able to purchase this by foregoing some potentially profitable trades, and that pays us more in the long term in our role as an information service provider.

Our ideology was designed to give us the greatest possible strategic advantage in our markets. That is not to say we do not believe in our ideals, but that the nature of our ideology is important. It does matter what we believe. It matters what you believe, and it matters that you understand that it matters.

I strongly recommend "The Modern Firm" by Roberts. Read this alongside "Built to Last". Roberts is a harder read, but he gets under the logic of corporate dynamics better than Collins and Porras. Because "Built to Last" is characterized by an ubiquitous analytical paucity, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras' interpretations of their data are not always correct. That is a pity. Their findings are exciting, inspiring even, and the book despite its limitations is a good read.