Built
to Last
By
Jim Collins, Jerry Porras
HarperBusiness, 2001 - 368 pages
James Collins is a management researcher from Boulder
(Colorado) 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 four 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. Collins has
recently written 'Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the
Leap and Others Don't' (2001). |
