Rating: 
Summary: A timeless masterpiece
Review: This is a book which will be a guiding beacon today and even hundered years from now. The principles which the authors have enumerated are time tested ones. I wish there were more books like this.
Rating:
Summary: Good example for firms in underdevelopment countries
Review: Built to Last must be teached at Business School in our universities. It shows clearly in its findings,the correct orientation to obtain the result that our Manager today need: put the values, principles in first place, and in second place the profit, like a natural implication. Besides, it explains with clear support, the advantages of planning and defining a long term vision.
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Summary: Spiritual Pursuit
Review: While making money in the short run seems to be the going craze for most of the young people around, "Built to Last" gives a welcome relief by bringing to the fore what GREAT men (and women) have done to their companies (and society)by nurturing ideals of achieving time-defying success that rewrites the rule of success.As the CEO of a growing education organisation, almost every word of this book struck a chord deep down in my heart. The notions of long term loyalty to a motive far beyond money-making is too enthralling ! I tried it out on myself for the past 4 years and presto ! It works ! Sudden extra doses of energies pump through your veins and the future looks crystal clear...though the haze of the coming net based society remains an impediment- a welcome one. Galvanizing workforce across the length and breadth of your corporation has always needed either an extremely charismatic leader who could tie all individual goals to something more transcendental or teach people the virtue of looking beyond the bottomline. I practised this policy for some years and at the latest AGM of my orgnsn., I was happy to see the stunned faces of many when I posed the question to them all "A hundred years from now when all of us would be dead and gone, where would our organisation be ?" The looks on the faces were telltale. I got the message clearly. "Built to Last" is the only reason and motivation that keeps me ticking every day, with an energy level greater than others. Suggestions -- All the young managers out there...read this one. It will change forever your life strategy. Yes, it will !
Rating:
Summary: Sutsainable Excellence
Review: For me, one of the most interesting components within Build to Last is the authors' discussion of what they call the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) "which engages people -- it reaches out and grabs them in the gut. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused. People 'get it' right away. It takes little or no explanation." As Collins and Porras discovered, "The BHAGs looked more audacious to outsiders than to insiders. The visionary companies didn't see their audacity as taunting the gods. It simply never occurred to them that they couldn't do what they set out to do." This same attitude is found the Great Groups which Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman analyze in Organizing Genius. Members of Great Groups have absolute confidence in what they and their associates can accomplish: "Of course we can create full-length animation films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs....Of course we can design a user-friendly personal computer....Of course we design an aircraft which is essentially invisible to radar...." Failing to achieve a BHAG was unthinkable to them. Build to Last is a superb achievement. There is perhaps no better source of information to enlighten and guide efforts to achieve evolutionary progress. Its value is not derived from what Collins and Porras know; rather, from what their rigorous examination of visionary companies reveals. It remains for each reader to determine for herself or himself which revelations are most relevant...and then act upon them with discipline, tenacity, and -- yes -- patience. A single retail store in Kemmerer (WY) or Bentonville (AR) did not become a multi-billion dollar global corporation overnight. (Collins and Porras do not include JCPenney and Walt-Mart among the companies they discuss.) Every visionary company had to begin somewhere. For those who are determined to build the next generation of visionary companies, Collins and Porras explain how.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing but true
Review: Simple explanations of core values and a easy book to read. For companies specifically dealt with in the book, I'd recommend that employees read the book to recognize both good and bad. It is sad to see some visionary companies now going down hill becuase they have departed from the core values that Collins talks about - Boeing for example.
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Summary: New insights on growth for people and organizations
Review: If you invested in a general market stock fund, or a comparison company, and a visionary company January 1, 1926 and reinvested dividends, a $1 in the general market fund would have grown to $415; not bad. Your $1 investment in the comparison companies would have grown to $955 (twice the general market). But your investment in the visionary companies would have grown to $6,356, six times greater than comparison companies and fifteen times greater than the general market. The "visionary" companies: 3M, American Express, Boeing, Citicorp, Ford, GE, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Marriott, Merck, Motorola, Nordstrom, Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, Sony, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney. Enduring companies grow because they concentrate on being a great organization, not because of an original idea for a product or service. A lasting, core ideology is the driving force behind a visionary company; not culture, strategy, tactics, operations or policies. Core values are simple, clear, straightforward beliefs of unchanging, fundamental values such as The Golden Rule, but core values differ widely. They are the basic reason for existence beyond just making money. Visionary companies concentrate on building an organization rather than implementation of a great idea, charis-matic leadership, or wealth accumulation. The authors call it "clock-building" rather than "time-telling." Growth favors the persistent but persist in what? They never give up on the company, but drop losing ideas, adopt winning ideas and along the way, try many ideas to find winners. But it's the company, not the idea. Most revealing was the extraordinary fact that visionary companies can live with contradictory ideas and forces at the same time. They don't accept an A or B concept, for example, that there must be either stability or change. They do both at the same time, all the time. This is a rare, difficult trait. The book aptly quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald: "...first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas... at the same time.. . and still function." The profit myth. Visionary companies are more idealogically-drlven and less profit-driven than comparison companies. Of course they pursue profit, but they do both. More importantly, their values don't shift with the times, or changing markets. As the authors reel off the rather obscure names of heads of visionary companies (and their personality traits), clearly they aren't charismatic leaders, but perhaps better described as "architects." People have always harbored a deep need to be assured that someone or something must have it all figured out; God must have made it that way. Not so with visionary companies. Things are the way they are because the founders created an evolving, changing process for selecting what works and doesn't work. And these visionary companies continue to come up with a stream of successful products and services. Other shattered myths. Playing it safe: They make bold, risky commitments and make them work most of the time. A great place to work: You fit and flourish or hate it and leave. Brilliant strategic planning; Best moves are made by trial and error. Beating competition: They concentrate on beating themselves. They believe in home-grown management; promotion from within. The authors conclude that new ideas will become obsolete faster than ever before, therefore corporate success must be ideological and provide common bonds of values, beliefs and aspirations. This is a landmark book. It goes beyond corporate concepts and provides new insights on growth for individuals, groups or organizations.
Rating: 
Summary: Some good stuff, but mostly hack work
Review: I found the one chapter in the book on Cults and Culture to be compelling, but overall this was an unbelievably boring and repetitive work, with little or no substantive research on the control groups used to compare visionary and non-visionary companies. I think I got their point of clock building, not time telling the first time they used the metaphor. I found myself getting extremely frustrated with the repetitive reference to simple observations through out their study: Preserve the core, stimulate progress, blah, blah, blah... A MUCH better book on which type of companies will succeed in the new age of the service based economy is The Profit Zone. It takes many of the same companies mentioned in Built to Last and does much better job of describing why some succeed and some fail. The chapter on GE is especially illuminating. The Profit Zone is a methodology based book; Built to Last is more of an excercise in aphorisms with the exception of one remarkable chapter on organizational cultures (chapter six, Cult-Like Cultures). I guess having one original observation is a BHAG for just about any business book.
Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Primer for Building Excellent Organizations
Review: This book aids those who seek to improve their organizations (or start new ones) through a unique research approach - unique in two ways. The authors studied 18 outstanding companies through their entire history and also studied their respective primary competitors (e.g. Westinghouse and General Electric). Then Porras and Collins distill their insights into a few memorably expressed principles. I have found their advice invaluable.
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Summary: Time-honored principles
Review: The book gives an excellent, in-depth analysis of principles and factors that drive 18 of the most successful companies in the world. The authors' continual reference to preserving the core (core values, not core technologies) and stimulating progress resonates with force. The authors cite many cogent cases that bolster their premise. Specifically, a formerly atrophying IBM recently re-established itself as one of the leading technology companies by stimulating progress. While I am not a CEO, nor even a manager, the book's findings were as applicable to my job as they are to that of a CEO. I recommend this book to anyone who wishes to make a difference in his or her organization
Rating:
Summary: Make applying the principles of this book YOUR BHAG
Review: This was a scholarly work, well founded in research, and rounded out with case studies from visionary companies and their non-visionary counterparts. It contrasts the strategies used by visionary companies to build strength across decades.
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