Built To Last – Review

The book written by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras. Authors have done six years of research in most successful companies of North America. These information in preface fuelled enthusiasm to read the book. The book starts with a very promising note that this is the work of substantial research and in the first chapter authors have clarified which companies they researched and why.

I liked it when they said they compared best company with Second Best Company because comparing best with worst will not give any new information, it is this line, which raised my hopes, and I started looking forward to reading next chapters.

In next two – three chapters authors clearly gives the reasons why best companies are best. They have even corroborated their reasons with appropriate examples. This all looks great at surface and seems informative but the book fails to answer very basic question, why have authors chosen the examples that they have chosen to prove their reason. Authors have chosen mathematical approach of giving hypothesis first and then proving that with reasons based on examples from research. The approach is appealing but it fails when it does not give reason why are the examples chosen when they are chosen. It appears, since authors have chosen best companies as best and its second best companies as second, they are trying to justify themselves for making this decision.

Secondly they are trying to prove existing notions about successful companies wrong, they have done commendable job by raising questions about existing philosophies but they fail in proving their own philosophy.

In all I found it good for having raised questions about existing theories and philosophies but I did not like the fact that authors are trying to impose their judgment or opinion on readers. It would have been much better had authors presented facts and reasons but let reader decide why.