Preserve the Core: What it Means for Visionary Companies
Inspired by the book Built to Last by Jim Collins
What makes a business outlive its founder?
Think about it.
The secret isn't just in great products or a service never seen before. It's something that goes much much deeper.
Anyone can have a great idea or push their innovation and technology further and further, but sustaining both like yin and yang is almost a spiritual practice. Why did great visionaries like Blackberry, Pan Am, and Kodak fall behind?
It wasn't for lack of trying, or a failure to innovate.
The critical factor?
They lost sight of the delicate balance between their core ideologies and the need to evolve. For these companies, innovation became a race for novelty, overshadowing the foundational principles that made them successful.
They pushed for change at the expense of their core values, disrupting the communion between stability and evolution.
It’s all about the core.
"Core ideology in a visionary company works hand in hand with a relentless drive for progress that impels change and forward movement in all that is not part of the core ideology." - Jim Collins, Built to Last
Just like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence have guided the United States beyond its founding fathers, a solid core ideology steers a company beyond its initial visionary.
The Concepts from Built to Last:
Clock-Building, Not Time Telling
"Indeed, we’re asking you to consider a shift in thinking analogous to the shift required to found the United States in the 1700s.
Prior to the dramatic revolutions in political thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the prosperity of a European kingdom or country depended in large part on the quality of the king (or, in the case of England, perhaps the queen). If you had a good king, then you had a good kingdom. If the king was a great and wise leader, then the kingdom might prosper as a result.
Now compare the good-king frame of reference with the approach taken at the founding of the United States. The critical question at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was not “Who should be president? Who should lead us? Who is the wisest among us? Who would be the best king?”
No, the founders of the country concentrated on such questions as “What processes can we create that will give us good presidents long after we’re dead and gone? What type of enduring country do we want to build? On what principles? How should it operate? What guidelines and mechanisms should we construct that will give us the kind of country we envision?”
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams were not charismatic visionary leaders in the “it all depends on me” mode.
No, they were organizational visionaries. They created a constitution to which they and all future leaders would be subservient.
They focused on building a country. They rejected the good-king model. They took an architectural approach. They were clock?builders!"
By Jim Collins / read full article here
How does this correlate to business?
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Imagine the core ideology as the heartbeat of a company—steady, strong, and essential for life. The heartbeat isn't just heard in quiet moments.
It's there always. Driving every decision, every innovation, every risk. It’s sacred, echoing through the corridors of the company’s culture, shaping its identity and actions.
However, preserving the core does not mean stagnation.
In fact, the most visionary companies thrive on a dynamic tension between maintaining their core ideology and pursuing relentless innovation.
The drive for change is not an external pressure. It is an internal impetus, a primal urge to improve, innovate, and lead. This drive does not dilute the core, it enhances and actualizes it, ensuring the core ideology does not become an artifact but a living, breathing aspect of the company’s daily operations.
Visionary companies embed their drive for progress into every aspect of their organization. They create tangible, specific mechanisms that not only preserve the core but also ensure continual innovation and relevance.
So, what does this mean for you?
Ask yourself, are you just keeping time, or are you building a clock?
Are your company’s values and drive for progress clearly defined and deeply ingrained, pushing you towards continuous improvement?
Don’t just create something that works now. Build systems, cultures, values that endure. That’s how you ensure your business isn’t just about the moment. It’s about the ages.
Build to last. Preserve the core. Stimulate progress.
Make history. Change the world.
Thank you for reading!
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Founder/CEO @ National Fleet Management | Process Improvement
11 个月This is one of best, well written post I have read on LI and thank you Tayler!!!