800-CEO-READ Blog

Built to Last?

In the Nov 04 Fast Company, Jennifer Reingold and Ryan Underwood look at the companies that Jim Collins and Jerry Porras featured in the classic Built to Last that was published ten years ago. "Was Built to Last Built to Last?" is a also a classic magazine article in that if offers some interesting insight and some not so interesting insight. For example, we find out that Tom Peters gets $65k to speak in the US and $85k to speak outside the US. We learn that according to R.R. Bowker 5,301 books “claming” to be about business were published, up 30% from three years ago.

FC offers a piece on “How to read a business book” 1) Take a big grain of salt—which has a great Tom Peters quote “It ain’t the Bible.” 2) Distill the central idea 3) Create your own toolbox—you are going to have to go to a newsstand or buy the mag and look at page 108 to figure that out (or you can wait until the article goes up online).

It is hard to argue with the last sentence in the article “Perhaps Built to Last readers would do well to follow the title of chapter seven ‘Try a lot of stuff and keep what works.’ Now there’s some business advice worth taking.”

All in all, the article kind of got my hackles up when I first read it because I feel looking at anything written ten years ago about business would come up short considering all that has happened. After reflection, it’s OK.