Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
Built to Last asks why a small set of companies, including 3M, Disney, Hewlett Packard, and Procter and Gamble, kept winning across many decades while their peers faded. Collins and Porras paired each visionary company with a contemporary rival and ran a six year research project to find what actually separated them. The answer is rarely a charismatic founder or a single hit product. Instead the authors point to a clear core ideology, big hairy audacious goals, cult like cultures, and a habit of trying many things and keeping what works. The book reframes company building as the design of an institution rather than the pursuit of one strategy.
Also by Jim Collins
What you might want to know about Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Jim Collins and Jerry Porras study eighteen long lived companies against direct competitors to isolate the habits that let visionary organizations endure for generations.
In a 2004 Fast Company interview Bezos named Built to Last as his favorite business book and required reading at Amazon, and Collins later worked directly with Amazon's leadership on company culture.
No. The case studies and frameworks are written for a general reader, and the core ideas about core ideology and audacious goals translate to nonprofits and personal projects as well.
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies was written by Jim Collins, published in 1994 by HarperBusiness.
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies is 355 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies takes most readers 5 to 8 hours to finish.
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
