Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras

Built to Last is the result of a six-year research project that examined eighteen pairs of companies — each pair consisting of a visionary company and a comparison company in the same industry — to understand what made the difference between companies that lasted for generations and those that did not. Jim Collins and Jerry Porras found that the visionary companies consistently outperformed the comparison companies by factors of six to fifteen.

The most surprising finding was that charismatic leadership, great initial product ideas, and strategic planning were not the key differentiators. Instead, the visionary companies had built clock-making organizations rather than time-telling individuals, meaning they had created institutional mechanisms for sustaining greatness that did not depend on any single leader or product.

The visionary companies were driven by a core ideology — a core purpose and set of core values — that remained fixed even as their strategies and practices evolved dramatically over time. Rather than being constrained by their values, these companies used their core ideology as a foundation for daring, almost reckless ambition — what Collins and Porras call Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

The book introduces other key concepts including preserving the core while stimulating progress, the genius of the AND versus the tyranny of the OR, and trying a lot of things and keeping what works. These principles have influenced the founding philosophy of some of the world’s most successful and enduring organizations.