Built to Last Quotes

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Visionary companies make some of their best moves by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and—quite literally—accident. What looks in retrospect like brilliant foresight and preplanning was often the result of “Let’s just try a lot of stuff and keep what works.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Visionary companies are so clear about what they stand for and what they’re trying to achieve that they simply don’t have room for those unwilling or unable to fit their exacting standards.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Visionary companies pursue a cluster of objectives, of which making money is only one—and not necessarily the primary one.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“When in doubt, vary, change, solve the problem, seize the opportunity, experiment, try something new (consistent, of course, with the core ideology)—even if you can’t predict precisely how things will turn out. Do something. If one thing fails, try another. Fix. Try. Do. Adjust. Move. Act. No matter what, don’t sit still.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last

“...it is better to understand who you are than where you are going—for where you are going will almost certainly change.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last

“One of the most important steps you can take in building a visionary company is not an action, but a shift in perspective.”
― James C. Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Comfort is not the objective in a visionary company. Indeed, visionary companies install powerful mechanisms to create /dis/comfort--to obliterate complacency--and thereby stimulate change and improvement /before/ the external world demands it.”
― James C. Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“The only truly reliable source of stability is a strong inner core and the willingness to change and adapt everything except that core.”
― James C. Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Deep restlessness is far more important and powerful than simple ambition or raw intelligence. It is the foundation of resilience and self motivation.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Indeed, if there is any one “secret” to an enduring great company, it is the ability to manage continuity and change—a discipline that must be consciously practiced, even by the most visionary of companies.”
― James C. Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“wouldn’t that person be even more amazing if, instead of telling the time, he or she built a clock that could tell the time forever, even after he or she was dead and gone?3”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Instead of directing a business according to a detailed . . . strategic plan, Welch believed in setting only a few clear, overarching goals. Then, on an ad hoc basis, his people were free to seize any opportunities they saw to further those goals. . . . [Planful opportunism] crystallized in his mind . . . after he read Johannes von Moltke, a nineteenth century Prussian general influenced by the renowned military theorist Karl von Clausewitz [who] argued that detailed plans usually fail, because circumstances inevitably change.”
― James C. Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“We all snickered at some writers who viewed Dad [Sam Walton] as a grand strategist who intuitively developed complex plans and implemented them with precision. Dad thrived on change, and no decision was ever sacred.”
― James C. Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Failures at J&J have been an essential price to pay in creating a healthy branching tree within the context of its core ideology. In spite of these setbacks, the company has never posted a loss in its 107-year history. J&J’s financial success makes the company look to outsiders like it was all mapped out by a strategic genius. In reality, J&J’s history is filled with favorable accidents, trial and error, and periodic failures. Summed up chief executive Ralph Larsen in 1992: “Growth is a gambler’s game.”24”
― James C. Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“If you are a prospective entrepreneur with the desire to start and build a visionary company but have not yet taken the plunge because you don’t have a “great idea”, we encourage you to lift from your shoulders the burden of the great-idea myth. Indeed, the evidence suggests that it might be better to not obsess on finding a great idea before launching a company. Why? because the great-idea approach shifts your attention away from seeing the company as your ultimate creation.”
― Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Hewlett Packard Chairman Built Company by Design, Calculator by Chance.”
― James C. Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“How many companies have you encountered that articulate a clear ideology at the start of the company, yet cannot articulate a clear idea of what products to make?”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“These categories encompassed virtually all aspects of a corporation, including organization, business strategy, products and services, technology, management, ownership structure, culture, values, policies, and the external environment. As part of this effort, we systematically analyzed”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“The specific methods used by these companies in the past may not directly apply to the future. We acknowledge this. But throughout our research we kept looking for underlying, timeless, fundamental principles and patterns that might apply across eras.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Myth 10: The most successful companies focus primarily on beating the competition. Reality: Visionary companies focus primarily on beating themselves.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Myth 8: Highly successful companies make their best moves by brilliant and complex strategic planning. Reality: Visionary companies make some of their best moves by experimentation, trial and error, opportunism, and—quite literally—accident.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Visionary companies do not ask, “What should we value?” They ask, “What do we actually value deep down to our toes?”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“this is the crucial point—Zenith, unlike Motorola, did not display an organizational propensity for setting bold, audacious goals after the death of its founder in 1958. By the early 1970s, “innate cautiousness” pervaded Zenith, as described by its controller in 1974: It’s hard to explain why a decision is made not to do something. There are a number of reasons behind it—including innate cautiousness. For one thing, we’ve always had our hands full with [our current markets] and we’ve always tended to stick with what appeared to be the biggest payoff and what we knew how to do best. . . . We didn’t feel we could compete . . . in those [new] markets unless we were willing to sacrifice some of our margin, and we were unwilling to do that. We are basically a U.S. company and likely to stay that way.64”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“The only truly reliable source of stability is a strong inner core and the willingness to change and adapt everything except that core. People cannot reliably predict where they are going and how their lives will unfold, especially in today’s unpredictable world. Those who built the visionary companies wisely understood that it is better to understand who you are than where you are going—for where you are going will almost certainly change. It is a lesson as relevant to our individual lives as to aspiring visionary companies.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Contrary to popular wisdom, the proper first response to a changing world is not to ask, “How should we change?” but rather to ask, “What do we stand for and why do we exist?”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Put another way”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“IF you are involved in building and managing an organization, the single most important point to take away from this book is the critical importance of creating tangible mechanisms aligned to preserve the core and stimulate progress. This is the essence of clock building.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Tyranny of the OR”—the rational view that cannot easily accept paradox, that cannot live with two seemingly contradictory forces or ideas at the same time. The “Tyranny of the OR” pushes people to believe that things must be either A OR B, but not both.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

“Myth 7: Visionary companies are great places to work, for everyone. Reality: Only those who “fit” extremely well with the core ideology and demanding standards of a visionary company will find it a great place to work. If you go to work at a visionary company, you will either fit and flourish—probably couldn’t be happier—or you will likely be expunged like a virus. It’s binary. There’s no middle ground. It’s almost cult-like. Visionary companies are so clear about what they stand for and what they’re trying to achieve that they simply don’t have room for those unwilling or unable to fit their exacting standards.”
― Jim Collins, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies