Rating: 
Summary: The Perfect Business Book - A Must Read
Review: Overall, this is an excellent book about how to build a company that will stand the test of time. The authors present the information in a format that is easy to read for the senior executive or someone with no business experience. While the authors present detailed and informative examples of actions that businesses have taken to be successful, the number of examples can become cumbersome. If someone is looking for a quick reference of strategies to improve a company, this is probably not the book for them, but if an individual is looking for an in depth report on techniques used by companies, it would be a useful tool. This book's intent is to show you the cogs that matter and give you some framework by which to align them to drive a company constantly/relentlessly forward. Often managers get lost in the P&L of the day. While that is important, it may not be enough to keep the fiber of the organization together. This book can serve as a reminder to us all of what is important to maintain a business that is financially successful but more importantly keeps its employees and customers happy. This book's simple goal is to shatter two myths that many believe a visionary company is founded upon, the incredibly innovative product and the charismatic leader.
Rating:
Summary: The Perfect Business Book - A Must Read
Review: The next time you see a book that casts a business leader as a mythical or heroic figure, go back to this book and see if the leader passes the 'Level 5 Leader' tests. Sandy Weill, for example, fails that test miserably, since he cares nothing for his company or its employees, and only about feeding his insatiable appetite for personal profit, self-aggrandizement, and great food, in that order. Weill is an example of the so-called celebrity leaders who are very reluctant to groom and name their successors, since they care far more about holding onto their power than for the longer-term welfare of the company and its employees. The last thing you'd see these quasi-leaders do is sacrifice their power or money for longer benefit of the company. Eisner is another perfect example of Emperor-CEO who got paid obscene amount of money and drove out top talents from Disney, while its business and stock prices languished badly.A perfect business book - erudite, entertaining, and relevant - and a must-read for anyone who ever dreamed of becoming (or simply working for) the true business leader.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book with a Flaw
Review: This book reminds me of the hero in the classic Greek tragedy. The hero is always magnificent, but has a tragic flaw. This is a magnificent book with a tragic flaw.
Porras and Collins set out to write a book about visionary companies, and they did just that. They chose the companies they would study based on specific, detailed criteria.
They wanted to study companies that had been premier institutions in their industries and widely admired while they made an imprint on the world around them. They wanted their companies to have multiple generations of chief executives and to have gone through multiple product or service lifecycles. And they wanted the companies to have been around for a long time - founded before 1950.
They compared each of their visionary companies with another company that was not a premier visionary company. Many of the comparison companies were solid performers. They were good companies, but not great companies. That's one of the great things about the book. You can see the distinction between good performance and great performance.
Another thing that makes the book great is the extensive research. The project took six years, and the authors and their research team dug into critical issues and came up with fascinating insights and comparisons.
Read this book and you will learn about the characteristics of great companies that have an impact on the world around them. The discussions will enrich your understanding of what makes a great company. This will be especially valuable to you if you're in the process of building a company that you want to be great.
That's the great part, the hero part. What about the flaws?
The first flaw is that essentially performance for each of these companies is equated with market performance. There are lots of things the authors could have used, such as return on assets, for example. But share price is easy to track over time and is used as a surrogate for greatness. I'm not sure that that's the best criterion.
What you are actually reading about is a selection of excellent, visionary companies that were perceived as good investments by the market. This "perception" issue is not addressed in the book.
The second flaw is more important. While this book tells you marvelous things about companies that are admittedly great and about some of the things that make for greatness in companies, and while it mixes statistical data with telling anecdotes, it falls short in one critical area. The book doesn't tell you anything about how to achieve greatness.
In other words, it describes what greatness might be and it gives you some examples of companies who have achieved it, but the book ultimately left me with the nagging desire that the authors would have given me some "how to." As far as you can tell from reading the book, these companies were always great.
That may not be a problem for you if you're just starting a company. You've got a clean slate to start from. But if you're guiding an already-established company, or a part of it, I think you'll wish for a few examples of companies that became great after performing at some lesser level.
That's the bottom line in my recommendation. If you're looking for a book that describes greatness and where you'll pick up a wealth of ideas and good historical knowledge about great companies, buy this book. If, on the other hand, what you want is a book that describes in some detail how to achieve that greatness, this may not be the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Read this along with Good To Great
Review: This book will show you how to take your business from just average to great but even more importantly, make it last. Built to Last is a must read for all business people. Read this right along with Good To Great and Double Digit Growth. Take your company to unequaled growth and leave a legacy.
Rating: 
Summary: Take your company beyond basic product development
Review: To make a long review short - this is a great book. But reading it 6 years after it was first published makes it even more interesting. Many of the companies described in the book (Boeing) has had a hard struggle since then.
As a former COO and now as an entreprenuer, the book is relevant and well written. It shares some amazing insight about the companies it evaluates and it brings on som very interesting conclutions. Being in sales I began shortly after reading this book to change my stock portfolio into companies that was run based on the same leadership mantras as the book describes. It is hard to get beyond the marketing story telling of such companies - but fact is my portfolio has never been better since I changed my investing paradigm. This review is not about investing - but trying to dig out the the conclutions of this book from the real world companies of today is truly interesting. I love it - I hope the visionaries will continously beat the pragmatists.
Rating:
Summary: Should be required for all levels
Review: Years ago, my boss, hiring many of as refugees from another company, opened the doors on his own business. The first thing I remember his doing was giving me a copy of this book so that I would know how he wanted to approach management.
I have since moved on to become a college English instructor, so some might wonder what I was doing in what was, effectively, a management role. What this book illustrates, however, is that managers don't make companies work, worker-centered policies do.
Now, years on, that company has become part of something much larger and quite successful. Nonetheless, I still apply many of the ideas expressed in this book in the way I interact with my students.
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