Built to Last Book Summary

Book Summary

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Brief Summary

Studying visionary companies who have endured lasting success is a chance to learn from their ability to succeed and continually grow.

In order to achieve success, visionary companies create core values for themselves that they stay true to, even as they pursue new goals. However, it is not just about values, it is also an ideology that includes its purpose as a company, which is simply the reason the business exists.

Visionary companies do not just exist for profit, but by continuing to grow while staying true to their ideologies, they will ultimately find a way to make money.

These companies are all about creating big goals, stimulating growth, and developing strong leaders who are able to take on leadership roles as needed.

About the Author

Jim Collins is an American author, consultant, and lecturer on the subject of business management and company sustainability and growth. He graduated from Stanford University with both a Bachelors’s and an MBA. He worked at McKinsey & Company as well as a product manager for Hewlett-Packard. He founded a management laboratory in Colorado, where he conducts researches and teaches business executives and social leaders. He worked as a senior executive at CNN international and also with social sector organizations such as the John Hopkins School of Medicine. He writes for the Harvard Business Review, Business Week, Fortune, and other publications.

Topics

Entrepreneurship Management & Leadership

Built to Last Book Summary Preview

While we might believe that the success of a company is dependent on them having great ideas, this is not always the case, at least not at the start. In many cases, the most successful businesses chose to brainstorm after they had already formed their company.

In Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras discuss the ways different companies and leaders have been able to not only achieve success but also continue being successful. And while you may think you do know what makes a company or a leader successful, you may be surprised by the reality of what it takes to last in business.

From Hewlett Packard to Sony, some of the most successful companies did not start with a great idea but rather tried different ideas until coming up with something innovative and different.

And while you may think that the company leader needs to be a visionary with a high-profile, this is not necessary either. In many cases, these leaders were more down-to-Earth and modest.

So the question becomes, how did these companies continue to succeed and grow when other companies did not?

How companies are built to last

In order to be a successful company that lasts, it is important not to focus on a single person, idea, or product. To become an “outstanding organization,” it is all about building yourself up and constantly producing new ideas that are great, and new leaders.

The founders of some of the greatest companies did not build their organization off of a great idea, but rather they created a company that was able to achieve greatness. By continuing to move forward without focusing on any one product or person, the great companies were able to remain successful.

Rather than just producing a great idea/product or leader, successful companies are able to do both. This allows them to work like a well-oiled machine.

Successful companies with a vision are driven by a core ideology that allows them to prosper without a focus on profits

For a company to truly be successful, it must have a higher purpose than just looking for profit. By having a core set of values that guide their decisions, these companies are able to endure difficulties that might crumble another business.

However, just because a company is principled, that does not mean that they are unable to profit. In many cases, even though profit was not the primary goal for a company, they were able to make pragmatic decisions about the business that still allowed them to make money without wavering from their core values.

By having a core ideology, when a business faces difficulties, it allows them to stop and clarify what they need to do in order to stand by their convictions.

An example used in the book comes from Ford and the issues they faced in the 1980s. As the authors pointed out, rather than just fighting fires, the company’s leaders took the time to have a discussion about the ideology of their founder, Henry Ford. They chose to...