Hertel, Matthew A.

Rating:
4/5 cultist board members

Author:
Jim Collins

Amazon Link:
referral program on hold :(

‘Built to Last’, Jim Collins’ 2004 follow up to ‘Good to Great’, is an academic summary of the foundational work carried out at Stanford that lead to Collins’ understanding of what makes good companies ascend to the the level of greatness. ‘Built to Last’ is comprehensive but not exhaustive, it provides the key insights from every stage of Collins’ research and ties up an overall narrative relatively neatly.

The book moves at a pace that keeps interest and drives to the core of questions that greatly benefit from careful evaluation to deliver some keen understandings in an integrated subject area of human psychology and business economics. The book is required reading for anyone who wants to work on business development, long term project management, or wants to understand the history of the various companies discussed over the previous century.

‘Built to Last’ is a text that should be re-read every decade or so, to re-align an understanding of historic predictors of greatness and project them through the ever-evolving modern lens of technology and social movement. The concepts of preserving the core, stimulating progress, and clock building are innately timeless, but they manifest themselves in different ways as our business environments adapt to new technologies, evolving regulation, and the next generation of leadership.

While the book was a joy to read and prompted thoughtful reflection repeatedly throughout the narrative, it does stray from the main path of the investigation at times. If you want the just of what is here, read ‘Good to Great’, and only venture down this rabbit hole if you really care to know the gritty details of the crafting of the Collins’ methodology.

Rating:
5/5 overly complicated corporate analogies

Author:
James Collins

Amazon Link:
referral program on hold :(

When I started working at X-energy, I quickly found out that the entire company had recently been encouraged to read Good to Great and demonstrating knowledge of it’s relatively complex analogies was a key criteria to demonstrating managerial competence. I quickly Googled the summary, added some mentions of the book in my daily slides, and slid quietly past the cultural gatekeepers who elevated the book to daily discussion within our meetings without really planning on taking the time to read the text.

I expected the references to the book to slowly decline as colleagues moved on to the next business success trend, quickly forgetting the little phrases that confused outsiders and reinforced the various concepts reviewed in the book. To my surprise, this didn’t seem to be happening. If anything, I saw our leadership returning to Good to Great again and again, even as other literary points of interest rose and fell over the months. I realized that there was something different and profound about the book that I wasn’t grasping by just reading the summary, that I would need to dive in and see what all the fuss was about. I am extremely glad that I did, as Collins provides one of the best investigations of commercial longevity and underlying drivers of long-term success that I have ever read. Good to Great delivers critical truths regarding building social structures and successful enterprises, cautions against reliance on a single visionary or temporary advantage, and drives home evidence-based philosophy for building a great team that will outlast any single member.

After taking the time to really investigate and digest Good to Great, I can confidently say that is different from most similar texts that promise to provide the secrets to corporate success with a number of clever analogies. comparing it against the various other business strategy books that I’ve read over the years, and noting where Collins diverges from the norm and takes a more scientific approach to understanding the drivers of success, I can whole heartedly recommend the book as both a scientist and engineer. Collins looks at the facts and at data, then tries to find the common traits that lead a small number of companies to unparalleled success over a wide range of industries and societal environments. His advice seems very intuitive and straightforward, but is nuanced and not the obvious path for many businesses to take as they are planning for future endeavors.

Good to Great changed the way that I understand business development and team-centered strategy for long-term commercial success. I would highly recommend that anyone interested in these topics read Collins’ detailed investigation and try to apply the timeless advice as much as possible. I hope that the follow up, Built to Last, is just as compelling and informative. I now understand why the text had such an impact on my colleagues and I hope it continues to be a central piece of literary guidance for our company for many years to come.