Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (Good to Great Book 2)

by Jim Collins

Having a great idea or being a charismatic visionary leader is “time telling”; building a company that can prosper far beyond the presence of any single leader and through multiple product life cycles is “clock building.”

Masaru Ibuka’s greatest “product” was not the Walkman or the Trinitron; it was Sony the company and what it stands for. Walt Disney’s greatest creation was not Fantasia, or Snow White, or even Disneyland; it was the Walt Disney Company and its uncanny ability to make people happy. Sam Walton’s greatest creation wasn’t the Wal-Mart concept; it was the Wal-Mart Corporation—an organization that could implement retailing concepts on a large scale better than any company in the world.

We ask you to consider this crucial shift in thinking—the shift to seeing the company itself as the ultimate creation.

It means spending less of your time thinking about specific product lines and market strategies, and spending more of your time thinking about organization design.

On the one hand: Yet, on the other hand:

Our research indicates that the authenticity of the ideology and the extent to which a company attains consistent alignment with the ideology counts more than the content of the ideology.

IN a visionary company, the core values need no rational or external justification. Nor do they sway with the trends and fads of the day. Nor even do they shift in response to changing market conditions.