Built to Last: Visionary Exam

I think American Express probably wouldn't stay on it. I think the fact that they were on it in the first place was influenced by a BusinessWeek article that came out a week before we did the survey. And it had the picture of the CEO on the cover and underneath it were the words "visionary leader." So I think people just connected the two. That's the power of advertising.

I would say that if we were able to conduct an experiment in which we surveyed CEOs every 20 years and we did it for 100 years, I would predict that all these companies would be nominated and be on some master list of companies. We do not think that these are the only visionary companies in the country by any stretch. But we do think these companies fulfill the visionary criteria in terms of the framework that we evolved. There are others. There are points in time that surveys are affected by the circumstances of a particular situation. So at any particular point in time, one or more of these companies may be off or on. But I think over a long time period, they would all be on it.

FC: Do people tend to grab on to one or two buzzwords in Built to Last and ignore the rest?

Porras: I hear core values thrown around a lot. I look at what people are saying are core values that really don't seem to be that. Purpose is another one that really is a word that people throw out but when you look at what their purpose is, it's a description of what they're doing, rather than why they're doing what they're doing. So certainly there are circumstances in which some of these things have become buzzword-y. A company grabs on to Big Hairy Audacious Goals and that's all they have, nothing else. I guess I'm also really pleased to see that the vast majority of companies that I've encountered are really trying to use all of them. My belief is that the main reason for the durability of the book is that there are ideas in here, not just buzzwords. In essence what we did, what I think we did, was presented theory.

FC: Is there anything about the book that you wish you could go back and change?

Porras: I often feel a bit offended when someone asks when we are going to revise the book. It's 10 years old now. And, gosh, you know we think that we discovered ideas that are enduring and will last for 100 years. How can we be revising it in 10? Ask me in 50 years. In the 10 years that I've been talking about this with managers and dealing with organizations, there really isn't any significant thing that I would alter. I really continue to be confirmed in my dealings with managers that the fundamental ideas here still are very, very relevant. There's nothing in my mind that has really aided the invalidity of these findings.