Those who built the visionary companies wisely understood that it is better to understand who you are than where you are going — for where you are go… - James C. Collins

This is not a book about charismatic visionary leaders. It is not about visionary product concepts or visionary market insights. Nor even is it about having a corporate vision. This is a book about something far more important, enduring, and substantial. This is a book about visionary companies. What is a visionary company? Visionary companies are premier institutions -- the crown jewels -- in their industries, widely admired by their peers and having a long track record of making a significant impact on the world around them. The key point is that a visionary company is an organization -- an institution. All individual leaders, no matter how charismatic or visionary, eventually die; and all visionary products and services -- all "great ideas" -- eventually become obsolete. Indeed, entire markets can become obsolete and disappear. Yet visionary companies prosper over long periods of time, through multiple product life cycles and multiple generations of active leaders.

Most businesses -— like most of anything else in life -— fall somewhere between mediocre and good. Few are great. When you compare great companies with good ones, many widely practiced business norms turn out to correlate with mediocrity, not greatness. So, then, why would we want to import the practices of mediocrity into the social sectors?

Good is the enemy of great. That good is the enemy of great is not just a business problem. It is a human problem