Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

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"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." So write Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in this groundbreaking book that shatters myths, provides new insights, and gives practical guidance to those who would like to build landmark companies that stand the test of time.

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 -- they have an average age of nearly one hundred years and have outperformed the general stock market by a factor of fifteen since 1926 -- 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?"

What separates General Electric, 3M, Merck, Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, Walt Disney, and Philip Morris from their rivals? How, for example, did Procter & Gamble, which began life substantially behind rival Colgate, eventually prevail as the premier institution in its industry? How was Motorola able to move from a humble battery repair business into integrated circuits and cellular communications, while Zenith never became dominant in anything other than TVs? How did Boeing unseat McDonnell Douglas as the world's best commercial aircraft company -- what did Boeing have that McDonnell Douglas lacked?

By answering such questions, Collins and Porras go beyond the incessant barrage of management buzzwords and fads of the day to discover timeless qualities that have consistently distinguished out-standing companies. They also provide inspiration to all executives and entrepreneurs by destroying the false but widely accepted idea that only charismatic visionary leaders can build visionary 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.

What Customers Say About Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies:

An absolute must read along with the follow on Built to Last. The extensive research behind this book is evident and the conclusions may surprise you. If your current business isn't everything you want it to be you may find the answers here.

For one thing "Built to Last" actually says interesting things. Second, there are no concrete suggestions in the book. There are some sections of the bookstore that don't really offer books per se but just a one-page powerpoint presentation of a trendy idea stretched far too thinly into a manuscript: the health section with all its diet fads, the lifestyle section with all its pretentious spirituality, and the business section with all its lame management-speak. Business executives who buy this book will discover two major flaws with it. Perhaps a bookstore's business section suffers from ignoring a fundamental principle behind a business's section: that it makes good people who are fortunate to have good ideas that are also right for the times. Its main argument is that companies that are "built to last" are so because they have some core principles that they follow religiously and which constitute their identity and their long-term vision, and outside these principles they're dynamic and flexible. The problem with being the best is that you have to be, by definition, better than everyone else.

More useful to read Machiavelli or watch "The Godfather." What the book ultimately fails to mention is that great organizations cannot be engineered or created. "Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies" by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras is really only just a business book but for the banal business genre it's pretty good. "Preserve the Core/Stimulate Progress" and "Clock Building, Not Time Telling" may all be good and key but how do you implement them in an organization. The authors point out that these habits are also indicative of successful NGOs, social/civic organizations, and government agencies -- I would even go further and point out that these habits are also indicative of a successful individual and a successful society. First, the book's ideas and principles are good and sound but almost impossible to implement. Read Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" -- another great and perfectly useless business book -- and you realize that for a phenomenon to have impact different individuals have to play different roles at different times. But that's neither marketable nor worth mentioning, and so business writers must resort to either glibness or in the case of "Built to Last" lofty but impractical management-speak.

A whelk's chance in a supernova is one who wants to succeed and does not read this book.

This book is excellent and what was contained in it will be used to adress what was learned by it into as multi billion one time great International Shiiping Container Carrier that is struggling during the current economnic dowtunr as never before in its 40 year history.The book being shared ir is being urged to be putchased and read.listened to so that all VP's an abive will be abke to discuss neasure abd implement what was contained in the book.Dominic

Relevant and informative, I can't say enough good things. This book is a great example of a useful business book. As a business owner, it is so refreshing to see a book that realizes the value of a stable team of executives and the importance of strong business-wide values. The authors back up all of their findings with solid data and they write it in such a way that it can be read in one sitting. Along with Good to Great, by James Collins, this book is one of the premier business books of the new century. Please buy this book and create value with your business.