Built To Last

7 Pages 1731 Words

rsified nature of successful business orientation, “Built to Last” is an informative analysis of its chosen topic. Its methodology is, in particular, an interesting one. Collins and Porras present themselves with a real challenge in defining vision by setting its elite companies not against mediocre and notably inferior control cases. Rather, the study proceeded with the initiative “to compare gold medal teams to silver and bronze medal teams whenever possible to give real meaning to our findings” (Collins, 16). This was the notion which undercut analyses such as that of office supply magnate 3M. Its basis of comparison was the similarly admirable Norton. However the case study draws a distinction between Norton’s narrow focus on dominance in marketing products in its chosen industry and 3M’s unrestrained willingness to invest itself in any enterprise which seemed practical and profitable. Such an approach served both to underscore 3M’s impressive transition from faltering mine company to industry leading scotch-tape hawker and to reinforce the recurrent idea in the book that the traditional theories of ‘correct’ management may not necessarily correspond with the factors needed to forge a visionary company. (Collins, 151) Another appealing element of the study, and one which tends to make ...