Book Review On

BUILT TO LAST

Written by: Jim Collins & Jerry .I. Porras

BUILT TO LAST

“Built to last is about turning great results into an enduring great company”

All about Built to Last

This book is not about charismatic visionary leaders. It’s not about visionary product concepts or visionary market insights, nor even about having a corporate vision.

This book is about something far more important, enduring and substantial.

A book about Visionary Companies

Best of the Best

In a six year research project, we set to identify and systematically research the historical development of a set of visionary companies, to examine how they differed from carefully selected control set of comparison companies, and to thereby discover the underlying factors that account for their extraordinary long position

Companies in the Research

Visionary Companies• 3M• Johnson & Johnson• Wal-Mart• Walt Disney• General Electric• Hewlett-Packard

Companies in the Research

Comparison Companies• Pfizer• Bristol-Myers Squibb• GM• Norton• Zenith• Kenwood

Founding Dates

• 1837 Proctor & Gamble• 1847 Philip Morris• 1886 Johnson & Johnson• 1902 3M• 1915 Boeing• 1923 Walt Disney• 1945 Wal-Mart• 1938 Hewlett- Packard

No “Tyranny of the OR”

In the book they have used symbols from the Chinese dualistic philosophy. These symbols are Yin/Yang symbols, these represent a key aspect of highly

visionary companies.The “Tyranny of the OR” pushes people to believe that things must be either A OR B, but not both.

Proclamations

• “You can have change OR stability”• “You can be conservative OR bold”• “You can have low cost OR high quality”• “You can invest for the future OR do well in the

short-term”• “You can be idealistic OR pragmatic”

Embrace the “Genius of the AND”

Instead of being oppressed by the Tyranny of the OR” highly visionary companies liberate themselves with the “Genius of the AND”- the ability to embrace both extremes of a number of dimensions at the same time. Instead of choosing between A OR B, they figure out a way to have both A AND B.

Big Hairy Audacious Goals(BHAG)

Boeing Corporation is an excellent example of how highly visionary companies often use bold missions-or what we prefer to call BHAGs as a particular powerful mechanism to stimulate progress.

A BHAG is not the only powerful mechanism for stimulating progress, nor do all the visionary

Try a lot of stuff and keep what works

Visionary company research and how they’ve come to the realization experimentation, trial & error, accidents, and opportunism were ahead of detailed strategic planning.

• An example of Johnson & Johnson’s accidental discovery of using talc as a skin soother after customers complained of skin irritation from medicated plastics they were producing. They sold packaged “baby powder” soon after.

Good Enough Never is

“How can we do better tomorrow than we did today?” instead of lesser questions posed by lesser companies like “how well are we going” and “how well do we have to perform in order to meet the competition.”

The End of the Beginning

• ” Concept to explain how visionary companies translate their core ideologies into the everyday workings of the organization”.

• Core ideology is translated into the strategies, behaviours, business practices, and goals of the organization.

• Poraas & collins used Hewllet-Packard as an example of a “core ideology into practice” organization with their management methods of providing well defined objectives to employees and allowing them as much freedom as they wanted to work towards that goal with the intention of recognizing the individual’s efforts throughout the organization.

Building the Vision

“ We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Leadership Traits

• Displaying high level of persistence• Overcoming significant obstacles• Influenced group of people towards the achievement

of goals• Ready to take risk

THANK YOU