Book: Companies that last

"Companies that last" It is a gigantic investigation, since it is more than 90 years on 36 companies, distributed in 16 industries and one nation, which is equivalent to more than 1700 years of organizational and administrative analysis.

What characteristics do truly extraordinary companies have? How is it possible that there are companies over 100 years old that, despite the death of their great founders, continue with the visionary mentality of their beginnings? What can XNUMXst century companies learn from legendary XNUMXth and XNUMXth century companies that are still going strong despite crises, world wars and adversity? What can we learn from companies like Walt Disney, IBM, HP or Procter & Gamble (P&G) that can be useful for companies that are just being born in these years?
These questions are the raison d'etre of the book.Companies that last«, a book that is the result of an investigation of more than five years, carried out by James Collins and Jerry Porras, researchers at Stanford University whose purpose was to find those organizational and administrative characteristics that visionary companies have.

And despite being the result of very formal, very extensive and very detailed academic research, this book is not only easy to read but also quite entertaining, useful and practical.. His absolutely real and applicable lessons make this material essential reading for any entrepreneur, president, manager or consultant who wants to really make a mark in today's world. There are anecdotes, success stories, cases of fracaso and endless good stories about great companies in American history. 

It is an inspiring book to undertake, to lead and to manage companies with purpose.

One of the first things to say is that this book is not about great leaders who impacted business history, nor is it about characteristics that a manager should have, much less about management trends that may disappear in 10 or 20 years. Really, Collins and Porras' book is about visionary companies, it's about building truly successful organizations, and it's about companies that last.

Many people who have studied in business schools recently, possibly already know this book and will be able to affirm that said material is rapidly becoming a classic of management, organization theory and organization design, since the conclusions of the study not only They are transcendental for the administrative world, but also, as the reader of this entry will realize later, they are lessons that in 100 or more years will continue to be relevant and useful for companies.

What good administrative material! What an excellent book we have at our disposal! If you really want to create a company or want to work in a really successful organization, I recommend that you read «Companies that last«. 

Something interesting that happens in this book, and that reinforces my point of view of saying that it is an essential and compulsory reading for entrepreneurs and managers, is that it was published in 1994 (more than 20 years ago) and curiously, both then and now continues to challenge many of people's beliefs about business creation and management, achieving, with such convincing results, specific steps that must be applied urgently in the creation of new organizations, and in the improvement of existing ones.

Definitely, it is unfortunate that after so much time of publication we continue to ignore in many areas truths that were the result of this revealing study, and that has such important implications for companies in any phase of their life in which they find themselves.

And for this reason, I invite you to venture into this book by Collins, a reference book for true companies: not those that simply seek profits, nor those that simply want to offer what the market demands. I am talking about transcendence, about vision, about leaving a mark that goes beyond the very lives of its leaders. I am referring to those characteristics found in the great companies of history, and that this extraordinary book can help to understand.

I invite you to read this good book, and I hope that this review will be useful to you.

A very complete investigation

Collins and Porras' goal with their academic work was to find out what makes a truly visionary company. And when reading the first chapter of the book, it is seen how they applied a clearly structured and well-defined method to be able to answer that research question.

The academic group studied truly exceptional companies, compared them with other similar ones (although they are good companies, they are not really visionary, as will be seen later) and analyzed each of their stages, each of their crises, countless documents, lives of its leaders and found different differentiating elements that translate into practical lessons for entrepreneurs and managers.

Definition and choice of visionary companies

The authors asked many CEOs of the world's largest companies for companies that had the following characteristics:

• Be a leader in your industry.
• Being admired by knowledgeable business people.
• Having left a clear mark in today's world.
• Having had multiple generations of presidents.
• Having gone through multiple product or service life cycles.
• Be founded before 1950.

If the reader goes through this list and analyzes what the authors put forward in the first pages of the book (the research method used is described in a very complete way in the first chapter of the book), he might like to see companies like Apple, Microsoft or other famous people from the recent technological world (that happened to me when reading the book) but that would limit the investigation to possibly the leaders who took some companies forward.

On the contrary, seeing companies with more than 80 years of history makes us automatically focus on the organization rather than on a punctual leader, managing to see that it makes companies transcend the very lives of their leaders, something that in itself is totally visionary.

After questioning several business leaders (there are very good details of the survey carried out in the book), the researchers identified common names and after a good analysis of the answers they came up with 18 visionary companies to study: 3M, American Express, Boeing , Citicorp, Ford, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Marriott, Merck, Motorola, Nordstrom, Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble (P&G), Sony, Wal-Mart and Walt Disney.

Something that I like about the research carried out is that the same authors are aware that simply studying the 18 companies is not enough to generate practical lessons, since it is necessary to have a control group that allows the visionary company to be compared with another organization and thus achieve identify those special elements.
The selection of the comparison group was taking into account the same time of foundation, similar products, fewer mentions in the surveys and that they were really good companies (not failed). In this way, a list of 36 study companies (18 visionaries and 18 comparison companies) was obtained, studied in an extensive and detailed way in order to find the distinctive characteristics of the companies that really endure over time in a successful and visionary way. :

study topics

For each of the 36 companies studied, the academic group led by the authors studied several aspects that would allow them to know these distinctive factors. Since a priori, it was not known what to look for, this group investigated all the points where there could be differences.
There were 9 characteristics of organizational analysis:

1. Organization provisions.
2. Social factors.
3. physical designs.
4. Technology.
5. Leadership.
6. Products and services.
7. Vision: values, principles and goals.
8. Financial analysis.
9. Markets and environment.

I am not going to go into all the details of the 9 points, because the book explains them very well. But what should be mentioned is that when reviewing the list it is evident that «Companies that last» is a very complete book in terms of analysis, because instead of studying strategy or leadership, or some specific topic such as finance or marketing, it actually analyzes all the possible elements of an organization in order to understand the company in its entirety. its dimension.
It is also very interesting that the applied analysis not only consisted of having the 9 study characteristics, but it was also multidisciplinary, since not only management tools were taken, but the group borrowed ideas from sciences such as genetics, psychology, political science and many more, in order to understand, study and explain some of the conclusions. This is a clear lesson for researchers because when we want to study a certain topic, it is sometimes common for us to fall into the error of seeing only the perspective of science in which we find ourselves.

A book full of lessons

The book has 12 chapters (10 formal chapters and two mini-sections called "middle" and "epilogue"), which I'll talk about a bit later.

The first chapter is mainly about how the research was done: The choice of visionary companies, how the comparison companies were chosen, some relevant facts from the study carried out, and a general explanation of what the reader will find in the rest of the book.

From the second chapter to the end, the material by Collins and Porras shows the conclusions of the study, emphasizing in each chapter a central point of analysis, examples of the findings found, elements not found in the comparison companies and specific lessons for managers, entrepreneurs and company presidents (not only about what should be done but also about what should not be done, further increasing its application). In general, the structure of each chapter is to review the lesson itself with a main example and then look at some of the company pairs to review it in light of the result found.
Seeing "Companies that last» As a whole, it is easy to see that it is not an analysis of the current situation, but rather a historical analysis that allows capturing lessons not only for today's entrepreneurs, but also for entrepreneurs 100 years from now, which makes it really be a historical analysis of long-term applications. So the reader will see in this book not only specific circumstances that at one time or another could be interpreted as successes or failures, but the reader will also find in-depth analyzes that explain how organizational cultures and truly enduring principles were formed.
A sentence from the authors sums up this historical analysis very well: “In our view, corporations resemble nations in that they reflect the accumulation of past events and the formative force of underlying genetics rooted in earlier generations” . 

In addition, this is a very good phrase by Collins and Porras that reflects a great conclusion that we sometimes ignore in many sciences: history is what builds people and companies, and therefore we cannot limit ourselves to studying a single event to understand what really happens, but rather have a systemic and historical perspective of all things, be great leaders , nations or companies.

what the book teaches

Now that we have seen the book as a whole, it is time to delve into the content itself in order to extract some important points from Collins' book, which I hope will help the reader.

Of course, my goal with the next few lines is not to summarize everything taught in the book, since the richness of the lessons can only be internalized by reading the entire book (that's why I say it's a must-read for entrepreneurs and managers). ). Rather, what I seek to describe some of the main ideas is summarized in two aspects: on the one hand, to motivate you to read the book, and on the other, to take advantage of the knowledge exposed in this material to have at hand a series of practical steps to carry out. out, that they serve both for me and for the reader of this review.

The philosophy of visionary companies

Although there are many lessons in the book (many of which I will quote later), the book's content can be summed up in a few central ideas that are transcendental to our traditional view of business.

1. Build a clock instead of just telling the time

In the first place, the companies that endure were built by leaders who were not satisfied with making a good product, or making a company that revolved around themselves, but rather with building a system that transcended their lives.

The analogy used by the authors to explain this has to do with the construction of watches, because more than giving an excellent time to a market that requires it (like many good ideas that have arisen in men and women who, when they died, left with their proposals ), it makes more sense to build a clock that provides excellent time even after the leader has died, and that also has the ability to reinvent itself to give ever better time and perhaps with a different style.

Extraordinary, don't you think? Well, that's what makes them visionary companies.

2. Central ideology: The main motivation is not utility

It is common to hear that "companies exist to generate money", and it is quite logical that we agree with this statement because if money was not generated, companies could not exist, but visionary companies have something special: money is not their primary motivation.
None of the 18 visionary companies seek money as the main axis of their actions. Of course it is a motivation (what company is not interested in generating profits?) but it is never the driving force behind their decisions. I think it's similar to when we eat: we need to eat to live, but that doesn't mean we live to eat; Likewise, businesses need money to survive, but they shouldn't simply exist to make money.
Rather, it can be affirmed that there are some values, or central ideology, that really are the guidelines in the way of existing of this type of companies. Thus we have examples of values ​​such as well-being (at Merck), ethics (J&J), innovation (HP or 3M) or freedom (Phillip Morris), among others immovable in the different visionary companies.
And we are not talking about a written statement that simply remains on paper saying what the company's values ​​are. Collins and his team found evidence, which they studied extensively and in detail, that each value becomes more of a central driver of behavior, a DNA that pervades the entire organizational culture in such a way that each employee is moved from the depths of their being. by the values ​​of the company in which it is located, that is to say that the values ​​are translated into a true feeling, thinking and acting in the organization.
The book has an extensive table where it lists the five main values ​​(it also provides some advice on how to define the core ideology) that drive each of the visionary companies, and how they are fulfilled to the fullest extent in each of these organizations, showing that These companies are driven by much more than the simple generation of profits.

3. Aggregation instead of disjunctive

Most materials related to business strategy place organizations in disjunctive approaches, since they are forced to choose only one of two possible approaches: costs or differentiation, short-term or long-term results, profit for the shareholder or well-being for the world, conservative or daring, among many other dilemmas.
However, the conclusions of «Companies that endure» show that visionary companies do not choose but rather add, that is, they achieve both objectives in an excellent and complete way. And achieving it does not mean staying somewhere between the two possible options (because that would be mediocrity, something not present in a visionary company) but really being creative to achieve both elements of the decision. It is not about A or B, nor about a midpoint between A and B, it is about A and B at the same time.
In this way, the stories told by the authors show companies that were focused on the short term and at the same time on the long term like HP, companies like Merck that managed to be organizations focused 100% on helping others and 100% on generating money. for their owners.
Collins and Porras show throughout the different chapters how the 18 visionary companies achieved this aggregation on many occasions, which eliminates the dilemma that the comparison companies embraced on so many occasions. Difficult to achieve? Of course, but therein lies the difference between some companies and others.
To explain this concept, the authors use a lot of yin and yang to explain this concept to the reader, showing companies that always have something at both ends of a decision that other companies might see as a dilemma, but that visionary companies manage to see. as aggregation.

4. The Core Aggregation: Preserving the Core/Encouraging Progress

The visionary companies studied by the authors manage to preserve values ​​in a way that transcends the lives of their founders (building the clock) but at the same time they are the ones that lead in creativity and innovation, not hesitating to change their products, open or close lines of product, or whatever is necessary for the purpose of adapting to the needs of the market, and at the same time they are also adamant about adhering to their core values ​​or ideology.
Doesn't that sound contradictory? How can I preserve the core of the organization and at the same time change everything else? Well, that is the magic of visionary companies: they know what to change and what to keep, thus managing to preserve the core and at the same time stimulate progress: If what should not be changed, the essence of the organization would be lost, but if the company is not changed, it could be left behind in history, that is why the visionary company knows what to preserve (core or central ideology) and what to change for always be continuously at the forefront. This aggregation achieved in these companies is possibly the most important exposed in the book since it is the basis of almost all the material.

The way to fulfill the philosophy

When reading the study carried out in «Companies that last«, one of the great points that the authors emphasize is the fact that the characteristics of organizations are not simply theoretical or believed only by their leaders, but that there are tangible mechanisms that ensure that all points are met.
In this way, there are concrete ways to establish, validate and maintain a central ideology, and at the same time specific mechanisms to stimulate progress in a way that ensures innovation and adaptation, achieving the aggregation already described above.
For this reason, the content of the entire book is divided into five main parts:

• Chapter 1: "The best of the best" where the research carried out is described.
• Chapter 2: "Build clocks, not tell the time" and Intermediate: No to the "tyranny of the dilemma" where the aggregation achieved by visionary companies is very well discussed.
• Chapter 3: «More than profits», chapter focused on the central ideology.
• Chapter 4: “Preserving the Core/Spurring Progress”, a chapter focused on the aggregation achieved to preserve the core while also spurring progress.
• Specific methods for aggregation, which are chapters 5 to 9.

This last part (the specific methods) is the one that allows us to show how visionary companies achieve that the philosophy is really fulfilled, because possibly you, dear reader, may be thinking that the book is something philosophical but not very practical, something that would greatly frustrate by not having specific steps to execute after the reading is finished.

Fortunately, from chapter 5 to the end of the book, the material manages to show specific measures and concrete lessons ready to be applied.

There are five specific methods that visionary companies use to reinforce the preservation of the core and the stimulation of progress:

• Chapter 5: "Big, bold goals" (spur progress).
• Chapter 6: "Cultures as cults" (preserve the core).
• Chapter 7: "Try lots of things and stick with what works" (encourage progress).
• Chapter 8: "House-trained management" (preserve core)
• Chapter 9: "Good enough is not good enough" (encourage progress).

Each of these chapters shows how visionary companies managed to ensure their objective (preserve core or stimulate progress) with specific mechanisms. At the end of each of these chapters there is a section called «Message for presidents, managers and entrepreneurs», which lands in clear steps what can be learned from the point in question.

Spur Progress: Big, Bold Goals

Collins's book shows a series of anecdotes from companies like Boeing, which could be interpreted as purely circumstantial matters (or luck) that led visionary companies to be what they are today, but what is really behind these different situations faced by these organizations is the fact that they always set themselves big and daring challenges that to many around them could seem simply crazy.
The authors call these great goals MEGAS, since they are challenges that cannot simply be framed as simple objectives. It is one thing to have a goal, but another thing is to take the risk of climbing Everest, that is, an immense challenge that places the entire company in function of said MEGA. I recommend the reader to review very well the stories of Boeing because they motivate us to undertake the great things to which we are called but many times fear does not let us continue.
Some characteristics of the MEGAS identified by the authors:

1. Big, inspiring and easily measurable goals.
2. Goals in accordance with the values ​​or central ideology of the organization (so that the entire organization is really focused on achieving the MEGA).
3. Goals that are constantly redefined, because according to the results of Collins, they are only useful until they have been achieved.

Dear reader, are your goals really ambitious or are they simply objectives defined on paper? Do you simply propose to fulfill what is at the level of your abilities or does it place you MEGAS that demand the most of you?

Preserving the Core: Cultures as Cults

This chapter of the book is quite challenging and at times even strange, as these topics are not common in business books, let alone management. However, this does not prevent it from being a very useful chapter because it allows us to understand not only the success of many companies, but also the failure of many employees who yearn to join a large company, and then simply realize that they do not "fit" with their core ideology, and thus almost run out of the company.
The central point of Collins and his team is that the core ideology is managed in a visionary company in such a way that the organizational culture seems more like a cult than a simple way of working, making the organization an excellent workplace for those who agree with the central ideology, but it can become a "hell" for those who do not go with the values ​​of the company in which they work.
It doesn't matter whether the ideology is correct or not (that would be another discussion the book prefers to avoid), but what really matters is whether the company really enforces its ideology to the very depths of its existence. To explain this, the authors make an excellent account of an employee who joins Nordstrom, and is happy to join one of the best companies in the United States, but the fact that he is not such a "fanatic" of the ideology means that he simply does not generate the expected results in said organization (I highly recommend this story for people who define the strategy in a company, as it leaves many valuable lessons).
There are also examples from IBM, Disney and P&G, but the main point is that the ideology of a visionary company has such a "sacred" level that it can exhibit cult elements, which are the following:

• A fervently defended ideology.
• Indoctrination.
• Accuracy of fit (there are rewards for those who reflect the ideology, and "punishments" in the opposite case).
• Elitism (whoever is in the organization feels that they are part of something really special).

For the different companies, the authors' research group found the above four elements consistently, making the central point evident: for an employee in a visionary company there are no middle ground with respect to the central ideology then, or the adopt and do whatever it takes for them, or simply have to leave the company (either by personal decision or by natural reaction of the organization).
Another finding of the authors at this point is that ideologies are raised in such a way that they are cults but not to people, but to the values ​​themselves. That is the reason why ideologies functioning as cults transcend the life of the founders, and thus it is understood that companies like Disney continue their "quasi-religious behaviors" even though the famous Walt Disney has been dead for several decades.
The chapter shows several specific mechanisms to achieve this, through stories and very good lessons from the 18 visionary companies, and examples of how the comparison companies do not exhibit such protections to their core ideology. Examples of this are internal education programs on organizational values, positive and negative reinforcement mechanisms, corporate hymns, among many other organizational procedures.
That is why it is important that we ask ourselves the following: Are we in organizations that protect their core ideology in specific and concrete ways, but also fervently and passionately? Possibly the same thing happens to you as to me, and when I read this chapter I wondered if they were exaggerated elements when managing an organization, but the truth is that when I finished reading I thought a lot about the fact that although such an ideology extreme that seems like a cult can seem dangerous, the fact that there is so much effort to preserve the core and at the same time there is so much contrast with characteristics to stimulate progress (the already mentioned yin-yang), makes this ideology more important for the visionary company.
Thus, the ideology as a cult is what allows the company to bet on big and bold goals. In addition, visionary companies manage to maintain ideological control but at the same time provide operational autonomy that stimulates progress and therefore translates into innovation. Finally, the central ideology handled in this way generates identity and trust, and if this is complemented with freedom (something that is seen in the next point) then infinite possibilities are generated to build progress on said identity.

Encourage progress: Try lots of things and stick with what works

This chapter is quite interesting, because the authors rely on genetics and microevolution to explain this characteristic of visionary companies, since they say that companies have evolutionary progress, that is, they adapt to their environment just like species. .
Collins and Porras talk about how evolutionary progress implies ambiguity, which implies unplanned progress, since there is a continuous adaptation to the surrounding circumstances. The authors show several examples in visionary companies where they did not know what to do, how to start or simply how to act, making an adaptation as certain moments arose in the companies. This implies what the authors call "incremental changes or mutations", that is, alterations of initial plans allowing adaptation to what was necessary at a given moment. That adaptability (and freedom) was one of many substantive differences between visionary companies and comparison companies.
To explain this, the authors make an analogy with the growth of trees, using the expression "to branch and prune." In the exact words of Collins and Porras, “The idea is simple: if you add enough branches to a tree (variation) and cleverly prune the dead parts (selection), you have the chance to evolve into a collection of healthy branches well positioned to thrive in an ever-changing environment” . In administrative terms, this implies constantly trying new things, keeping what works and very quickly discarding what does not work or does not bear fruit.
It is interesting how this is seen in highly decentralized organizational environments, which promote innovation (or variation in the tree), specific initiatives to decide which projects continue or are discarded (pruning the tree) and concrete mechanisms to guarantee learning from the successes and failures of the organization.
The quintessential example of this chapter is 3M, with its continual ability to adapt, test, and learn quickly. Here is a very interesting lesson: Rather than being a genius in economics or strategy, it is better to be adaptable, rehearse and learn quickly. The reader of this post might think that there is a certain contradiction between “defining big and bold goals” and having an evolutionary progress based on a certain ambiguity. But it's not like that, because the goals are to define the destination, but the evolution is the way in which that final point is reached. A concept called "Planned Opportunism," a concept by Jack Welch of General Electric, one of the visionary study companies, explains much of this, and the reading speaks volumes about it.
Another point to mention is that the authors say it (and possibly every manager knows it), and that is that all companies evolve, which is quite natural, but what is different in visionary companies is their ability to act more active in promoting such evolution, making it part of its organizational culture. In this way, although a product may be accidental, the environment that can turn the accident into an opportunity is not at all accidental, since this environment is generated in a clear and concrete way in visionary companies.
Some specific lessons mentioned by the authors are the following:

• "Rehearse and soon", that is, do not stand still.
• “Accept that mistakes will be made”, because failures are part of the evolutionary process.
• "Take small steps": small viable successes to influence the overall strategy.
• “Give people the space they need”. 
• Create mechanisms that stimulate progress, such as goals for innovation or the like.
• Remember that the only sacred cow in the organization is its core ideology, that is, their values. This means that everything can change: People, the industry the company is in, the products it develops and any strategy, procedure or practice in the company.

Here we all must learn to promote an evolutionary environment in our organizations by trying many things and sticking with what works.

Preserving the core: Administration trained in house

How is it that visionary companies do to preserve their ideological core when after several decades the change in leadership is natural? Well, the answer is actually simpler than it seems: The general manager or CEO (also known as CEO) must be trained in the organization. We have all seen news of the arrival of great managers to companies who come from other industries (or other companies) who come as "saviors" for companies in crisis. Well, visionary companies are not in that news. Collins and his team found that unlike comparison companies, where manager arrivals from other organizations were common, visionary companies had in-house trained managers: the perfect way to facilitate the preservation of the ideological core of organizations. According to the authors, in “1700 years of the combined history of visionary companies, only in four cases has an outsider assumed the presidency.”
The book recounts several examples very well, although it focuses on General Electric (GE) and shows how its great heads throughout its history were formed, and promoted within this company. Promoting from within in a planned and well-structured way facilitates the preservation of the core. Excellent lesson, don't you think, my dear reader?
The book uses Colgate (a comparison company) as a counterexample and shows how having trained managers within organizations facilitates a true "leadership continuity circuit" allowing values ​​to remain and reaching a fundamental lesson: to bring fresh ideas you do not have to look outside, because by doing so the ideas that arrive can threaten the immovable of the company, that is, its values, something that according to the book did not happen at Colgate. There are excellent stories from the authors showing the advantages of the home-trained administrator and the disadvantages of the foreign president embedded in the organization.
To finish this important lesson, the authors review the specific mechanisms that have existed in visionary companies and found that a company that wants to train true presidents must have a clear program of management development and succession planning, which allows thinking of a leadership of long term and really lasting. This implies humility in leadership and structure when defining corporate leaders.
When you lead a group of people or a company, do you really think about your successor and prepare it in advance?

Stimulate progress: "Good enough" is not good enough

The last element to be a visionary company is the constant and self-demanding search for excellence. The visionary companies studied are always questioning how they can do things better, and the drive to improve is as strong an internal force as the core ideology.
In this way, there is a true culture of discipline, an institutional habit that transcends any quality program (this is much more than having a quality expert). If excellence is part of the organizational DNA, a company is automatically formed whose obsession is always to improve itself.
The book details very well the different initiatives of the visionary companies, recounting results and testimonials from many of their employees. Initiatives like internal competition at P&G, Motorola's "innovate or die," Boeing's "eyes of the enemy," are just a few of the concrete forms of consistent excellence outlined in Collins and Porras' book, with entertaining anecdotes and in great detail.
Reading the book, one understands that visionary companies live off discontent with the status quo, which translates into heavy investments in Research and Development (R&D) and a clear focus on human capital. And at the same time, without losing short-term results, they always have such a well-founded vision of the future that makes them the companies that always lead the charge in innovation.
The authors say so: "The discipline of self-improvement is one of the clearest differences between visionary and comparison companies."
Finally, the authors emphasize the importance of understanding that making a company that lasts takes time, and that time implies a lot of hard work, a job that entrepreneurs do not always want to pay for.
Are you willing to pay the price of hard work to outperform even yourself at all times?

An extraordinary closure that clears any doubt

After naming the philosophy of visionary companies (build the clock, a core ideology, and an excellent aggregation between preserving the core and stimulating progress) and listing the specific methods of achieving it (big, bold goals, cultures like cults, evolutionary progress, administrators trained in the organization and obsessed with excellence), the book ends with a chapter called "The end of the beginning", a chapter to concretize many of the elements described, giving the reader a vision of some specific steps to work on.
Some of the main ideas are summarized below:

1. Having a vision statement does not guarantee that there is a visionary company. It is the first step of a long journey and a lot of work.
2. A visionary company creates the environment for the core ideology to become reality.
3. If you really want to build a visionary company, a true alignment and aggregation between core ideology and progress is essential.
4. The authors call it “Painting the whole picture”, and it refers to the fact that the complete set of elements is what makes a visionary company, that is, it is not a specific program, tactic or strategy that generates results, but the coherence throughout the organization is the true success factor. The authors make an analogy with art: in a truly extraordinary work there is no element that defines beauty, but rather it is the whole, and goes from the largest and most visible to the small details, sometimes difficult to define. by the viewer. That is why it is necessary to even sweat over the small things and at the same time always keep the whole picture and perspective for every program in the company in question.
5. Group instead of scatter. Each mechanism that is applied reinforces another, achieving a synergy in accordance with the purposes of the visionary company. That is why a manager must have a systemic perspective of the organization, instead of seeing business units or work topics as separate islands and with disjunctive purposes.
6. Follow your own inclination even if you go against the current. Sometimes this implies going against the conventional ideas of the time. Although the book mentions this point several times, at the end of the book it is given a very important emphasis. This refers to the fact that the direction to follow is set by the company itself, not external factors such as the market, conventional practices or passing fads. It is not about whether a practice is good or not, but how appropriate it is for the company and its ideological core.

The complements

Finally, the book ends with an epilogue and three very interesting appendices that work as good complements for the reading done.
Firstly, the epilogue contains common questions asked by entrepreneurs to the results of the investigation. It is a series of questions and answers, which clarify many of the doubts that may arise from the book. It is a very good compendium of common questions and their answers.
As a complement to the epilogue, the first appendix has to do with problems generated in the investigation, and how they were attacked by the academic group.
The second appendix is ​​a reference material to understand the 36 companies studied (the 18 visionaries and the 18 comparison companies). Here the origins, the foundation, the initial shareholders, industry and first results are explained. It is a kind of list of mini bibliographic cards that serves to help the reader.
Finally, there is a last appendix where many of the tables of the research carried out are found. There is information such as analysis criteria, information sources, numerical comparisons of some company data, among other very interesting factors for those who want to delve a little deeper into academic analysis.

What to do then?

After reading the book, a few useful final points result:

• The first thing is to define the central ideology (with a maximum of five values) according to the authors, and state it in such a way that it is clear that it will not change regardless of whether the market or any external factor changes. The authors speak of the fact that ideology is not created, but discovered by looking inside.
• Define the fundamental reason for being of the organization, that is, its purpose. The key question is what would the world lose if this company ceased to exist? The answer must be valid today and in 100 years.
• Then define mechanisms to stimulate progress.
• Define how to ensure alignment (point mechanisms) between stimulating progress and preserving the core.
• Be clear about the enduring foundation: Build clocks, not just tell the time.

I definitely recommend this book, which is an extraordinary gem for management.

Great Lessons for Managers, Entrepreneurs, and Consultants

Although in this review I have detailed the main elements of the philosophy of visionary companies and the specific methods found by Collins and his team, it is true that there are many more lessons for managers that are embedded in the different pages of "Companies that endure" , and that are extremely useful for day-to-day business.

For this reason, below is a list of 42 lessons for the benefit of the reader of this blog, which will be very useful and will complement the reading of «Companies that last«.

lessons on philosophy

1. The skills to make a visionary company can be learned. "Almost anyone can be a key player in creating an extraordinary business institution" (from the foreword). 
2. A visionary company is not a company with a perfect resume.
3. It doesn't take a great idea to start a great company, because the great creation of a visionary company is the company itself. That is why it is essential to “stop seeing the company as a vehicle for the products, and see the products as a vehicle for the company”. In this way, it is good to remember that an extraordinary product does not make an extraordinary company, rather the extraordinary company makes extraordinary products.
4. To build a visionary company you don't need a visionary leader. "The continuation of superior individuals at the head of visionary companies is because the companies are outstanding, not the other way around."
5. There are no specific personality styles for building visionary companies.
6. The manager of a company thinks more about the company than about himself. That is why there is thought in succession, more delegation and less authoritarianism.
7. A visionary company has an ideology that it truly believes in. This ideology never changes.
8. More than thinking that a visionary company is an excellent place to work, those who really enjoy it are those who function according to the basic ideology of the organization.
9. Visionary companies focus on outperforming themselves.
10. Making a vision statement is not enough. Concrete actions are needed to make it a reality.
11. The story of a visionary company almost never began with immediate success. "The race is won by the tortoise, not the hare."
12. Visionary companies find ways to aggregate disparate models, eliminating what the authors call the "tyranny of the trade-off" and achieving what they call the "genius of aggregation."
13. The main goal of a visionary company is not money, because there has always been a sense of purpose beyond profits.
14. There are no common elements in the base ideologies of the companies, the important thing is that they exist, and they are the strength of the company. What is really important is the authenticity and the degree to which the company lives it, rather than the content of the ideology itself.
15. A core ideology is defined by the authors by the sum of two components: the core values ​​(a few essential and permanent principles defined internally) and the purpose (the reason for existence).
16. Companies fail when they confuse core ideology with specific practices. The authors say that "a visionary company carefully preserves and protects its core ideology, but all specific manifestations of that ideology must remain open to change and evolution." 
17. There are two internal forces in a visionary company: the core ideology and the drive to improve.

Lessons about goals

18. They are not goals, they are MEGAS. The stories of visionary companies are marked by big and daring challenges. 
19. It is one thing to have a goal, another thing is to take on an immense challenge.
20. A MEGA goal is big, inspiring and easily measurable (you can know for sure when it has been achieved)
21. The goal must be consistent with the core ideology.
22. The goal must be inspiring for the whole team to move.
23. The goal only helps an organization while it has not been reached, that is why it must be redefined so as not to fall into the syndrome of "we have already arrived".
24. A goal is meaningless if the commitment is not consistent with it.
25. Setting big, bold goals requires confidence. A visionary company does not think that its goal is unrealizable.
26. The goal goes beyond the leader.

Lessons on devotion to ideology

27. The organizational culture in a visionary company is like a cult. This includes a fervently defended ideology, indoctrination, the existence of accuracy of fit (positive reinforcement to those who reflect the ideology, and negative otherwise) and elitism (sense of belonging to something special).
28. The cult is to ideologies, not to people.
29. There must be internal education programs in the organization's values.

Innovation Lessons

30. "Trying new things, sticking with what works, and quickly ditching what doesn't" is how a visionary company spurs progress.
31. Decentralized environments promote innovation variation.
32. Rather than being a genius in economics or strategy, it is better to be adaptable, rehearse and learn quickly.
33. The great goals or MEGAS are to define the mountain to climb, and adaptation is to invent the way to reach the top.
34. Although a product may be accidental, the environment that can turn accident into opportunity is not accidental at all.

leadership lessons

35. Promoting from within facilitates core preservation. In "1700 years of combined history of visionary companies only in four cases has an outsider assumed the presidency." When you definitely have to look outside, you must first look for congruence with the core ideology.
36. Every company should have a clear management development and succession planning program.

lessons on excellence

37. The real question for a visionary company is How can we do better tomorrow than today? This question is the other internal force in the organization (besides the core ideology). This implies an endless cycle of continuous improvement and an absolute culture of self-discipline. The authors say "The self-improvement discipline is one of the clearest differences between visionary and comparison companies."
38. Continuous improvement is not a program, but an institutional habit.
39. There must be mechanisms that promote nonconformity, generating discontent and dissatisfaction with oneself, since a visionary company lives on discontent.
40. There must be a short-term and long-term perspective simultaneously.
41. Excellence is only achieved with strong investments in research and development and in human capital.
42. There are no shortcuts to building a visionary company, as it takes a lot of hard work.

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