The book Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras is a compilation of findings the development of a few successful companies in the United States. Collins and Porras research 18 successful corporations and compares them with standards of what makes a company thrive above its competitors. Porras and Collins did a six-year research work that clarified a few misconceptions for a company to be successful (Collins & Porras, 2005; Basu, 2017) . They discovered that a great idea is not a prerequisite to begin a company and that it is not a mast to have charismatic leaders to achieve visionary organizations. This paper will summarize the chapters of the book Built to Last as it relates to the findings of the authors.
Chapter 1: Select three of the 12 shattered myths and discuss how they relate to the specific leadership approached, theories, or constructs (a good reference is our Northouse text from LEAD 500).
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The three shattered myths include the misconceptions that maximizing profits is the dominating goal of visionary companies; visionary companies focus on beating competitors, and a great idea is not a prerequisite to begin a company. A visionary company concentrates on a purpose, and not just a business strategy. The reason for the existence of a company is not just to maximize profits and meet the needs of the consumers (Basu, 2017). A company should have a vision and goal that can be sustained for more than a century because of adopting principles that remain relevant over many generations.
Visionary companies focus on beating competitors a misconception. For instance, Pharmaceutical Company Merck invested many dollars to come up with a medicine Mectizan. Mectizan became a revolutionary drug that was even distributed freely. The vision was not to compete with any company, but to do the right thing to reach patients who needed the drugs most. Lastly, a great idea is not a prerequisite to begin a company (Collins & Porras, 2005) . This can be elaborated with the constitution of Sony Company, whereby there was no idea from the beginning on what would be sold. In fact, many things were sold. The integral mission was to create an avenue of work for engineers to be involved in technological innovation (Collins, 2016). Companies with a specific idea seize to exist in cases when the product they were concentrating on is no longer needed. The same case is experienced among companies that depend so much on a charismatic leader. The passing away of the leader would lead to termination of the company.
Porras and Collins direct readers to consider visionary companies such as those of high repute, who contribute to society, and many more. The authors indicate their objectives of choosing visionary organizations and “comparison companies” that seemingly do not qualify according to the visionary standards (Collins & Porras, 2005) . Visionary companies are industry leaders that dominate others for a century and more years, being at the top across several generations as well as product cycles.
Chapter 2: Discuss Collins' concept of clock building, not time telling to transformational leadership.
Construing a culture that can be sustained for a long time beyond a charismatic visionary what clock building entails. Recognizing one great idea that can emanate success is time telling. Clock building also entails creating an organization that can produce several other great ideas for an extended period. That is, being able to make your idea work for others even after one is gone through several product life cycles. Therefore, sustaining greatness and success needs clock building. Builders of visionary organizations are beyond time tellers, but rather clock builders (Rosenzweig, 2007) . The major result of their inputs is not what implementing the idea tangibly, demonstrating their charismatic personality, or gathering personal wealth (Collins & Porras, 2005) . They are interested in replicating their attitude and personality and building the company itself. This concept disappoints the myths of the great idea and of having great and charismatic leaders. Creating and framing a visionary organization entirely does not need both a great idea and a charismatic leader.
The concept of clock building could be better understood by examining the founding of the United States in the 1700s. Before the historic revolutions, the success or influence of a European kingdom or nation was determined in a large sense by the type of the king that was ruling. That is, the presence of a good king would imply a good kingdom and the subsequent prosperity of the kingdom. Compared to the founding of the United States, this approach could not be sustained – it was time telling. The major question for the United States at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was not the person that was to become the president, or the wisest or the best king (Collins & Porras, 2005) . The founders of the nation focused on the processes that would guarantee them, good presidents, even if the founders themselves were no more. They concentrated on the principles, guidelines, and frameworks that will give them a country that would be appreciated even in the future. The founders formed a constitution to which the future leaders and themselves would be compliant. The goal was on building and being transformative, rejecting the charismatic model. This is a true scenario of clock builders.
Chapter 3: Discuss the tyranny of or in regards to the debate of leaders being born or made.
People who build greatness refuse the "tyranny of the OR" and assimilate the "Genius of the AND." Highly visionary companies are not bothered about the tyranny of the OR. The Tyranny of the OR makes individuals hold the idea that things can either be A or B, and there is no paradox. Highly visionary leaders embrace the "Genius of the AND" so that the leaders can utilize both the extremes of a framework concurrently (Law, 2018). They create a platform that will produce both A and B. A visionary organization does not look for a balance but endeavor to perform exemplarily in the short-term and long-term. It does not find a midpoint between idealism and profitability, but rather becomes very idealistic and at the same time extremely profitable (Rosenzweig, 2007) . A highly visionary company intends to exemplarily yin and exemplarily yang coherently, all the time.
The test of a rare and unmatchable intelligence is the potential to embrace two opposite ideas in the mind paradoxically, and still be able to function exceptionally well in both. It is precisely the orientation of visionary companies. George Merck II demonstrated these principles by exemplifying that medicine is for the patient, and not for the profits. The profits follow service to the people, especially when the medicine is intended for the people (Collins & Porras, 2005) . The visionary companies do not have profit maximization or increasing the wealth of shareholders as the major objective. They are responsible for many ideas and objectives at the same time, making profits being just one of them. Business to them is beyond an economic activity. Visionary companies enjoy embracing broader and more meaningful ideals and objectives. The ultimate results though ensure that they are successful in both maximizing their profits and meeting other important objectives.
Chapter 4: Provide an example of an organization (not cited in the text) of preserving the core while stimulating progress.’
A visionary company preserves the core, while it has a relentless drive to succeed giving way for change and progress in all dimensions of the organization. The motivation is more than the organizations implementing a change or being open for improvement, and having goals, but rather an innate, compulsive almost mandatory drive to progress (Rosenzweig, 2007) . For instance, the Nike Corporation had an innate urge for progress. They have demonstrated consistent urge to grow and be in every part of the world, to allow for technological innovation, and come up with new potentials. Nike Corporation is an ideal company that carries the spirit of the "Genius of the AND" such that it goes beyond mere balancing of the core and progress (Basu, 2017). It endeavors to be very highly ideological meeting the dynamic needs of the customers that change with time and become highly progressive concurrently.
Nike as a company launched their "JUST DO IT" logo, which was integral in their success. They achieved a lot by having representatives of athletes wearing their products, as a promotional tool in many sports fields. As much as Nike holds almost 45 percent of the American market, it has many other distributors globally, concentrating on all ages and groups of people. The drive for progress for Nike Company can be traced in the four athletes that wore Nike shoes among the seven athletes in a global sport (Collins, 2016). The founders of the company institutionalized this even, creating a base for the company to take roots globally. Such passionate zeal around their core and progress to see every age group as an opportunity made them create tangible mechanisms to maintain the core ideology as well as motivate their progress (Collins & Porras, 2005) . Some of the progress, for instance, is the creation of comfortable sportswear and unique design for veiled women (the Muslim women who use Hijabs). As a result, everyone today has their needs satisfied by the Nike products.
Chapter 5: Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of creating big hairy audacious goals.
A big hairy audacious goal (BHAG) is a visionary business goal that will motivate the workers in an organization. The creation of true BHAG has some advantages and disadvantages when incorporated in an organization. The first advantage of a true BHAG is its unifying feature of various inputs of the employees, forming a great team spirit among them. There is a definite goal such that the employees will be motivated to work towards one direction. The organization can determine an achieved goal or otherwise since everything is clear. A BHAG cause people to be accountable. They rise to respond as they are given targets and they can be motivated to attain them (Law, 2018). Based on its clarity, employees get it straight away without much explanation (Collins & Porras, 2005) . Getting it right from the beginning guarantees effectiveness in executing that goal. For instance, Microsoft had a BHAG in 1980 that every house and every desk will have a computer. This initiated team spirit, and motivated employees to produce and subsidize more computers to be owned by many today.
Some of the disadvantages of BHAG are that quality principles are significantly influenced and stretch goals could be an avenue for other strategic problems. Quality principles could be affected in that many companies may not concentrate on sufficient strategic planning before coming up with a BHAG since they do not recognize it as part of the business process. It may challenge the progress of the organization in terms of attaining business goals (Collins & Porras, 2005) . BHAG could also pave the way for strategic challenges. For instance, raising the operational costs like labor, materials and many more. Such operational costs would crop up in the process of extending or reducing the market share, shifting demand and local and worldwide economic instabilities.
References
Basu, S. (2017). Corporate purpose : Why it matters more than strategy . Routledge.
Collins, J. (2016). Good to Great : Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't . Instaread.
Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (2005). Built to last : Successful habits of visionary companies . Random House.
Law, B. M. (2018). What Matters To You Is What Makes You: A sense of purpose drives us personally and, more broadly, fuels any organization’s success, says convention keynoter Roy Spence . The ASHA Leader , 23 (9), 42-46.
Rosenzweig, P. (2007). Misunderstanding the nature of company performance: The halo effect and other business delusions. California Management Review , 49 (4), 6-20.
