Rating: 
Summary: Built to last rocks
Review: This book zooms straight into my list of essential business books alongside Innovator's Dilemma and Social Life of Information among others ( see my definitive business books list). I read this book while developing a "core value discovery" program for my young company, and this book and In Search of Excellence were bibles. The writing is clear and lucid and though the principles outlined seem obvious, the number of companies that think these too idealistic (read hard) to follow or too removed from the bottom line to matter would argue otherwise.One of the earlier customer reviews correctly points out that the book is based on the premise that "Built to Last" is an ideal worth striving for and argues that a "Built to Flip" corporate mentality may be just as valid. This book is about building an organization with institutionalized capabilities that uniquely enable it create value into perpetuity - whether in one distinct organizational form or a multiplicity of morphed states. If flipping is based on selling out before others realise that the Emperor has no clothes (or that the Emperor is wearing a hired Tux) then this must assume that the organization's walls don't leak - a difficult assumption to make in today's connected economy full of promiscuous investors and employees-with-modems. <B>The principles to tattoo on my forehead</B>
<B>Focus on Organizational Building</B> - Clock Building not time telling
<B>Core Values that transcend profits</B> - if the value will not outlive a market that penalizes it then it is not core
<B>Authenticity of the value is more important than it's morality</B> - "Better to have believed amiss than never to have believed at all".
<B>Align & re-align the organization around the values</B> - "un-reinforced core values never die ... they become empty marketing slogans"
<B>Beware the Tyranny of the OR</B> - "The test of a 1st rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function"
Rating: 
Summary: A Familiar Story
Review: "Built to Last" is very similar to the book of Peters and Waterman in terms of content and composition with a little difference, that is methodologically this book is stronger because the theory is worked to be proved by investigating two companies in selected sectors, one of which is very successful and the other is less successful or completely a failure. You can find important considerations concerning leadership and its mission and function for an organization. The vitality of organizational values, innovation and running risk, challenging goals, organization culture, vision etc., are stressed by the authors. This book is one of the books which propose time and culture free universal principles. You may be pleased by rhetoric, but you must be alert. Overall, I recommend this book to readers who have not yet read "In Search of Excellence".
Rating:
Summary: Deeper than business tactics
Review: I'm not a business person, and don't willingly read business books. Yet this one has something to offer, even to me. These boys go about their research with serious intellectual integrity -- willing to let the evidence destroy their hypotheses and starting over with new ideas -- they come upon some deep and important truths about leadership. For example: Preserve the core philosophy, hold all else loosely. Look for ways to replace "either or" with "yes AND" Be a clockbuilder, not a timeteller. Among other ideas. I don't know if what is here is profound in the business world, as I don't exist in the business world. But it is often the simplest of simple truths -- the kind we tend to overlook. I read this as part of a staff of a campus ministry, and found it definitely helpful. I think any leader of ANYthing will find it helpful. If I ever go into business, I'll come back to it. There are no "quick steps to success" or get-rich plans, there is simple a strong philosophy of business clearly expressed. As I said, the boys have done their research, and are eager to show it. The book bogs down when they cite example after example of how their "visionary companies" have illustrated the concepts they are putting forward --proving to me that they're right, but testing my patience at the same time.
Rating: 
Summary: enjoyed listening
Review: I am referring to the audio tape version of the book which i enjoyed a lot. Apparently James C. Collins, Jerry I. Porras did a very long analytical research before they strarted. You learn new things and you learn new ways of looking into things. You discover why visionary companies stay forever. Money seems to be everything in our lives and it is the reason for these companies' existence however it is not what drives these visionary compnaies. I hope to read the book because i feel that i missed a lot in the tape. The authors explain themselves in a very simple way. they summarize their ideas and findings in points and then they explain each of them thoroughly. they show you comparisons among these companies and among companies that are very strong and known but not visionary.
Rating:
Summary: Inspirational Analysis of some of the World's Best Companies
Review: The subtitle of this book sums it up best: "successful habits of visionary companies". The authors of Built to Last researched a handful of exceptional "well-built" and performing companies and compared them to the "next-best-in-class" companies to determine what characteristics made the best companies better than all the rest. Their research led them to find many similarities among the "world class" companies which, of course, is what the main content of the book is about. This book had a large impact on me for a couple reasons. First, I've used many of the words and phrases that I learned here and transferred them to my working environment. (e.g. "mission", "vision", "core ideology", "core values", etc.) Second, I've been able to use many of the model companies in this book to teach others in my company how business should be managed. (e.g. Merck, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Wal-Mart, Johnson & Johnson, etc.) There are so many good ideas in this book that I made a note to myself to "read it once every year just for some new ideas". I've taught business peers more from this book than any other I have read.
Rating:
Summary: Lived happily ever after¿..
Review: I read this book for the second time after my first reading two years ago. This time my focus was to see if the principles guiding "visionary companies" (most of them old economy models) will hold well in the new economy. I am convinced that most of the visionary companies would succeed in any kind of transformation in the marketplace. It is these companies that set "BHAGs", have excellent cultures, care for their image and emerge as stars in the final analysis. Good management principles cannot be discarded for the sake of temporary gain. And that is precisely why these companies have survived in turbulent times in their making . This is not to say that all 18 companies would repeat their performance for the next 50 years; but if they continue to be guided by the same fundamental principles on which they are built , they will certainly last forever. Dot coms may kindly note....
Rating:
Summary: Great lessons, well illustrated and practical
Review: I read this book about three years ago and have come back to it many times since -- this is not something I can say about many business books. What makes this different is that 1) it has solid research behind it and 2) the writers have successfully organized it to be read as a compelling narrative AND to be usable as a reference. It was at the core of our own organization's effort to discover and articulate our values, which in turn helped us focus as we rapidly grew from a small to medium sized company. I also bought the audio cassette as a bit of crutch to get through it the first time. Though it requires your attention and a little rewinding, I found this a great way to both get the core concepts to sink in and, since then, to refresh my memory on occasion. Last note. I have had the opportunity to work with two of the mentioned 'Visionary' companies described in the book and can attest to their substantive cultural difference and the impact it has on the motivation and focus of their people. Highly recommended for a wide range of readers.
Rating: 
Summary: A logical fault remains unexplained: Why bother ?
Review: I came across this "built to last" book as a compulsory reading of my MBA class and I think there is a fundamental fault in the "built to last" argument which if not resolved, it is meaningless to talk about how to build such companies: Why bother? Why shouldn't an economy of "come and go" or "build to flip" be more efficient than one of "built to last"? Why shouldn't productivity and innovation be much easily fostered in an economy of "come and go"? A lot of the "B t L" companies are there since the rise of the industrial economy in which large groups of people worked together in the form of division of labour to achieve efficiency. Internally, a corporation cultivates a set of collective behaviors pattern that forms the identity of the corporation and allows individual members working together to achieve synergy. Externally, customers identify the brandname of the corporation than with the product most of the time. In the modern network economy, it has become much easier for individuals or smaller groups to identify their counter-parts to work with. Outsourcing, supply-chain management, B2B, virtual corporations are new way for groups of people to work together without much corporate identities. To customers, brand marketing is also loosing ground as power shifts from the vendor to the customers. Isn't it make more sense to think of great corporations as small groups engage in a Darwinistic competition rather than a large conglomerate in which incompetence and inefficiency are protected by layers of bureaucracy and politics? What if in a world of "C & G", everyone has to focus more on upgrade of transferrable skills rather than climbing up the corporate ladder? Why shouldn't the world economy be better off if there are more "C & G" than "B t L" companies? I dont have the answers and I think those would vary according to time, information technology advancement,national environment and industries. However, without answering them, how can anyone be sure that "B t L" is a meaningful pursuit.
Rating:
Summary: Best business book I've ever read
Review: If you are trying to build a business that stands for something that you can imagine being around a hundred years from now, you have to read this book. If I could only get you to read one book, this is the one I'd give you.
Rating:
Summary: The essence of leadership
Review: Until reading Built to Last I regarded "vision" as a rare attribute possessed by a select group of successful individuals, something far out of my limited reach. However, Collins and Porras showed that I can acquire vision in three steps: discover those core values or principles most important to me above all others, identify my firm's fundamental reason for being, and 'envision a future' through creating audacious organizational goals and vivid descriptions of their achievement. The authors provided me with a valuable template I will use to find my own, unique vision. Thanks to them my new understanding and appreciation of vision will promote the development of a strong, positive corporate culture in my firm. Built to Last is one of the few books that I will return to time and again for advice, long after my textbooks are gone. For help with discovering my core values, I found Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" another "must-read."
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