Recommended by Deepak Mohindra, Editor-in-Chief, Apparel Resources
Why to read ‘Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies’?
The book outlines the results of a six-year research project into what makes enduringly great companies. Two primary objectives for the authors’ research go as follows: ‘To identify underlying characteristics that are common to highly visionary companies’; and ‘To effectively communicate findings so that they can influence management’. The research conducted by Collins and Porras was articulated in Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, presenting valid examples based on stories and research data.
By studying companies that have prospered over the years, the authors were able to uncover timeless fundamentals that enable organizations to endure and thrive. The companies were studies not only as big business but also as start-ups and growth companies. And they succeeded from their earliest days by adhering to the same fundamentals that can help today’s growth companies emerge from the turbulence of the 1990s to become the HPs, 3Ms, and P&Gs of the 21st century.
Excerpt: 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”.
