Jim Collins and Jerry Porras authored this fantastic book documenting the successful habits of Visionary Companies. The main takeaway – if you are involved in building and managing an organization, the single most important part to take away is to “preserve the core and stimulate progress”. This is referred to as clock building in the book – building a company that can prosper far beyond the presence of any single leader and through multiple product life cycles. Sound simple?

Preserve the core and stimulate progress is referred to as embracing the genius of the AND. How often in our leadership journeys do we struggle with this? Low cost OR high quality or can it be low cost AND high quality. As a parent is it living by the rules OR creating a loving environment or living by the rules AND creating a loving environment? In our personal lives is it living healthy OR enjoying the moment or living healthy AND enjoying the moment? Yes, we can have both.

In the book we are given mechanisms that have proven to be successful with other successful companies – Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs), Cult Like Cultures, Try A Lot of Stuff and Keep What Works, Home Grown Management and Good Enough Never Is. A great read and very powerful for my current business challenge.