Built to Last : Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

by James C. Collins, Jerry I. Porras ; Paperback, 368 pages

(Continued from Book List)

CEOs, scholars, and lay people alike recognize a qualitative difference between merely successful companies and "visionary" ones-between a McDonnell-Douglas and a Boeing, between a Columbia Pictures and a Walt Disney, between a Zenith and a
Motorola. But what distinguishes a successful company from the kind of company whose very name becomes a cultural icon, whose place is fixed in the public consciousness? In Built to Last, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, two business scholars, identify for the
first time the unique characteristics of visionary companies and show how any business can cultivate them.

Collins and Porras are the first to apply rigorous, historical, comparative study methods to identify the distinguishing characteristics of visionary companies. To identify a set of such companies to study, they polled CEOs nationwide and distilled the results into a list of companies that met the following criteria:

Premier institutions in their industry

Widely admired by their peers
Have made an indelible impact on the world
Have experienced multiple generations of chief executives
Founded prior to 1950

The resulting study group, which included such companies as 3M, Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett-Packard, and Marriott, outperformed the general stock market by over 15 times since 1926.

With this group as the basis of their study, the authors present a remarkable series of case studies contrasting these visionary companies with a group of their direct competitors. Their results demolish some long-standing myths about the nature and operation of such extraordinarily successful enterprises:

The myth of leadership: a charismatic leader is not required to produce a visionary company and in fact is often detrimental to a company's long term performance

The myth of hiring talent from the outside: visionary companies find their CEOs from within-Jack Welch of GE is a prime example of "home-grown management"

The myth of conservative approach: visionary companies rely more on what the authors call "Big Hairy Audacious Goals" than on conservative practices

The myth of reliance on tight internal controls: visionary companies experience some of their most important changes as a result of trial-and-error, experimentation, and luck-"try a lot of stuff and keep
what works"

The myth of focus on profits: visionary companies do not exist primarily to maximize profits or shareholder wealth-they're guided by a sense of purpose beyond just making money

The myth of universal values: visionary companies develop strong values, but they are not necessarily the same from company to company; it is the fact that these values exist, not their specific manifestation, that distinguishes these companies

The myth of having a "great idea": starting a company with a "Great Idea" might be a bad idea-few visionary companies begin life with a great idea, and some begin with outright failures

From Merck to Philip Morris, from General Electric to Nordstrom, from Ford to Sony, "visionary" companies display an amazing resilience and an unshakable commitment to their core ideology that allows them to surpass even their more temporarily successful competitors and achieve a lasting place in the cultural landscape. By examining the founding and history of these companies, the ways in which they have handled both adversity and success, and their continued commitment to their corporate identity, Collins and Porras reveal the unique characteristics of visionary companies and show what actions other companies may take to achieve the same level of long lasting performance. This new paperback edition offers still more insight into the visionary company and will inspire many new readers with its examples.

 

List: $15.00 ~ Amazon.com Price: $12.00

 

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Revised 10 December 1998