
— James C. Collins, buch Built to Last: Successful Habits of 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.
Book abstract, as cited in: Joe Kelly, Louise Kelly (1998), An Existential-systems Approach to Managing Organizations. p. 256
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, 1994