Messer’s Collins and Porras have in effect paid homage to the great American spirit of enterprise and free markets. How else can you explain the fact that almost all the companies profiled are either American or do majority of their business in the United states...
This however should not detract from the achievement of the companies or the authors. While American is most amenable to capitalist enterprise the American market is also the most competitive and unforgiving... so the success of these ’’Visionary Companies’’ is nothing to sneeze at.
What distinguishes ’’Built to Last’’ is that each ’visionary company’ (3M, HP, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart…) is contrasted with a comparison company founded in the same time, in the same industry, with similar founding products and markets (Norton, TI, Colgate, Ames…). This has been done to bring out the long-term impact of some practices doggedly followed by the visionary companies that resulted in far greater success in the market as compared to the comparison companies.
The book also explodes some of the common myths about what makes a great company. Some of these myths
It takes a great idea to start a great company
Visionary companies require great and charismatic visionary leaders
Visionary companies share a common subset of ’’correct’’ core values
Highly successful companies make their best moves by brilliant and complex strategic planning
The most successful companies focus primarily on beating the competition
You can’t have your cake and eat it too
have been heard so often in recent times that most of us might have accepted them as gospel truths.
At times the line of reasoning does look wanting in face of the stark contrast of the results being put in perspective. While Ford Motors is a visionary company it is smaller in all respects than the comparison company GM. IBM might have done better than Texas Instruments but how well does it compare to the new world phenomenon like Dell and Cisco. Disney may be far ahead of Columbia pictures but where does it stand in comparison to Time Warner. Not flaws of the thought process or a reflection on the completeness of research but merely a restatement of facts already proclaimed by the authors... ’’some of the stories of modern day successes may not be consistent with the habits of the Visionary companies’’
Which brings us back to one of the key qualities of a successful visionary company... Innovate and create processes that foster innovation... Innovation of a more fundamental kind... Of principles and values... refined enough to lay the foundations of a built to last company.