Book Reviews

Built to Last:
Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

By James Collins and Jerry Porras

Reviewed by Steve Buchwald, CIRM

This book draws upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University, where both James Collins and Jerry Porras are teachers. The book takes eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies-they have an average age of nearly one hundred years in existence 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.

This book is not a text book study of the current thinking in business philosophy. It is a journey into what separates the truly visionary companies from the rest. The researchers dealt with questions like, how did Procter and Gamble, which began substantially behind Colgate, eventually prevail as the premier institution in its industry? Or how did Boeing unseat McDonnell-Douglas as the world's best commercial aircraft company? As the authors state "The exciting thing is to figure out why these companies have separated themselves into the special category that we consider highly visionary." Again, the answers are not always what you think. Business school courses on strategic management teach the importance of starting first with a good idea and strategy. However, this is not the case with the visionary companies. In fact Chapter 1, The Best of the Best, discusses how the Stanford project research shattered 12 common myths about how to become a sustained successful company.

I highly recommend this book. Filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts, the ideas presented in this book can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels. The book is insightful and gives direction as most chapters have a section called, The Message for CEOs, Managers, and Entrepreneurs, where ideas on how the specific concepts covered may be applied in your organization. Additionally, if you are a business history buff you can find what you are looking for here. For those of you who are detail oriented this book can satisfy that desire as well. There are four appendices in the back of the book with tables, notes, research issues, and the founding roots of the visionary companies and the comparison companies.

While this book presents interesting ideas on how to become and stay successful it still must be kept in mind that there is no such thing as a guaranteed success. While organizations may stimulate progress they must still preserve the core. This idea of alignment is emphasized over and over again throughout the book. In the words of the authors, "By alignment we mean simply that all elements of a company work together in concert within the context of the company's core ideology and the type of progress it aims to achieve-its vision, if you like." I could go on forever, I think, about this book but then you would lose out in the fun of reading it yourself. So, what are you waiting for?

Good reading!