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Author: [[Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras]] Full Title: Built to Last Category: #books Second, thoughtful people crave time-tested fundamentals; they’re tired of the “fad of the year” boom-and-bust cycle of management thinking. Third, executives at companies in transition find the concepts in Built to Last to be helpful in bringing about productive change without destroying the bedrock foundation of a great company (or, in some cases, building that bedrock for the first time). The only truly reliable source of stability is a strong inner core and the willingness to change and adapt everything except that All individual leaders, no matter how charismatic or visionary, eventually die; and all visionary products and services—all “great ideas”—eventually become obsolete. Indeed, entire markets can become obsolete and disappear. Yet visionary companies prosper over long periods of time, through multiple product life cycles and multiple generations of active leaders. TWELVE SHATTERED MYTHS Myth 1: It takes a great idea to start a great company. Reality: Starting a company with a “great idea” might be a bad idea. Few of the visionary companies began life with a great idea. In fact, some began life without any specific idea and a few even began with outright failures. Furthermore, regardless of the founding concept, the visionary companies were significantly less likely to have early entrepreneurial success than the comparison companies in our study. Visionary companies pursue a cluster of objectives, of which making money is only one—and not necessarily the primary one. Yes, they seek profits, but they’re equally guided by a core ideology—core values and sense of purpose beyond just making money. Yet, paradoxically, the visionary companies make more money than the more purely profit-driven comparison companies. Reality: A visionary company almost religiously preserves its core ideology—changing it seldom, if ever. Core values in a visionary company form a rock-solid foundation and do not drift with the trends and fashions of the day; in some cases, the core values have remained intact for well over one hundred years.

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Built to Last by Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras presents wisdom from the contemplative traditions.

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