BUILT TO LAST

by JIM COLLINS and JERRY I. PORRAS

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New softcover book, published 2002. 342 pages.

Successful habits of visionary companies

Built to Last presents the results of a six-year research project into what makes enduring great companies. It has spent nearly five years on the Business Week bestseller list, had over 70 printings, and has been translated into 29 languages.

Collins and Porras listed a total of eighteen companies they identified as ‘visionary.’ They defined a visionary company as one that is a premier institution in its industry, is widely admired by knowledgeable businesspeople, made an imprint on the world, had multiple generations of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), had multiple product/service life cycles, and was founded before 1950. The list of visionary companies was determined based on the results of a survey of 1,000 CEOs. The authors ensured representation across all industries and various sized organizations by sampling from Fortune 500 industrial companies, Fortune 500 service companies, Inc. 500 private companies and Inc. 100 public companies. The survey yielded a 23% response rate with 3.2 companies listed per response. An important caveat the authors express is the fact that through their research, they can claim a correlation, not a causal link between their findings and the success of companies.

Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Collins and Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies - they have an average age of nearly one hundred years 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. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day - as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: "What makes the truly exceptional companies different from other companies?"

What separates General Electric, 3M, Merck, Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, Walt Disney, and Philip Morris from their rivals? How, for example, did Procter & Gamble, which began life substantially behind rival Colgate, eventually prevail as the premier institution in its industry? How was Motorola able to move from a humble battery repair business into integrated circuits and cellular communications, while Zenith never became dominant in anything other than TVs? How did Boeing unseat McDonnell Douglas as the world's best commercial aircraft company - what did Boeing have that McDonnell Douglas lacked?

Filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, Built to Last provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the 21st century and beyond.

About the authors
James C 'Jim' Collins ( born 1958, Boulder, Colorado) has authored or co-authored four books, including Built to Last and Good to Great. Driven by a relentless curiosity, Jim began his research and teaching career on the faculty at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he received the Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. In 1996, he returned to his hometown of Boulder, Colorado, to found his management laboratory, where he conducts research and works with leaders in the corporate and social sectors. Jim holds degrees in business administration and mathematical sciences from Stanford University, and honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Colorado and the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University.

Jim has served as a teacher to senior executives and CEOs at over a hundred corporations. He has also worked with social sector organizations, such as: Johns Hopkins Medical School, the Girl Scouts of the USA, the Leadership Network of Churches, the American Association of K-12 School Superintendents, and the United States Marine Corps. In 2005 he published a monograph: Good to Great and the Social Sectors.

In addition, Jim is an avid rock climber and has made one-day ascents of the North Face of Half Dome and the Nose route on the South Face of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. He continues to climb at the 5.13 grade.

Jerry I. Porras is the Lane Professor of Organizational Behavior and Change, Emeritus, at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business where he served as an Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and frequent executive education teacher. He studies ways of aligning companies around their purpose and core values to produce lasting high performance. He is also a business and management analyst who co-authored Success Built to Last: Creating A Life That Matters, and, with Jim Collins, the bestseller Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

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Built To Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras