Customer Reviews

Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Fast-Growth Firm

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Verne is truly the "entreprenuer's guru" - he knows our strengths and weaknesses to a prefect tee and Mastering the Rockefeller Habits is "the well" of inspiration for entreprenuers at any stage of their businesses.

What makes Verne the true genius is the fact that all of the ideas and concepts he talks about in the book are tangible resources that you can EFFORTLESSLY implement into your organization. Most books are full of ideas and leave the reader to "re-create the wheel" in order to make the ideas come to life, but Verne knows entrepreneurs well and has removed the burden of responsiblity to create the tanglibles he talks about.

I love to read, and have a lot of favorites including Good to Great, Wizard of Ads, Topgrading, The E-Myth and Execution -- but Mastering the Rockefeller Habits is truly the most practical and inspiring book an entreprenuer can read.

Planning is everything. Our company used to be great at developing plans - we had grand plans, plans we'd worked on for months, and plans for our plans. We were planning experts. But we couldn't implement. Our plans sat in fancy binders and we pulled them out to look at them periodically, felt better because we had them, and couldn't figure out why things weren't happening like we'd planned.

Then we read Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. And we found we could actually implement the plans that we learned how to develop from the methods and techniques defined in the book. We now have plans that work. And our company has matured tremendously as an organization from following the book. I strongly recommend that any company, from young start-up to those more mature, read and implement the strategies in this book. It will change your world.

Read five "how to" books and you'll get five very different ways to "do" something. Only turning those steps into Habits, and the mastering them, as Verne Harnish details in his book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, has worked for me. A growth "guru" in his own right, this book does as excellent job distilling the elements Verne's introduced to hundreds of fast growth companies into a recipe for success. It provides a clear methodolgy for annual and quarterly planning, alligning a management team around Brand Promise and a Big Hairy Audacious Goal and creating rhythm and clear, open communication within an organization. Before reading this book, and then applying Verne's principles, we were stuck in "no man's land". Now, our management team is alligned and we've grown more in the past six months than in the past couple of years combined.

I went through a phase where i was wondering whjere the next decent book was going to come along, and then someone recommended this and the 12 Elements of Great Managing. Both of which are excellent. The Rockefeller Habits was a book that was in the right place at the right time for me and our company. Using a lot of the tactics discussed in this book we revolutionized the way we were doing business, improved our company culture, aligned our organizational goals from top to bottom. It has certainly made me feel much more in control of whats happening with the business. The only downside is that the examples used tend to concentrate on companies that have gone on to tens of millions of dollars in turnover, which is fine, but can be a little pie in the sky for some industries.

This is an important resource for salespeople, managers, entrepreneurs and executives alike. Verne Harnish does a great job in breaking down the habits of Mr. Rockefeller, who is as close to a model of business excellence as you can find.

Harnish goes over all the business basics, such as setting priorities, analyzing data and creating the right rhythm for the business. One of my favorite lines from this book is: "Until your people are mocking you, you've not repeated your message enough". This statement is true when it comes to the values, objectives and the methods of implementation of the company.

The message of this book, if practiced, will make your business a predictable enterprise for growth. The book has so many good points that I stopped highlighting after the first chapter, lest I highlight the entire book. Enjoy!

For any entrepreneur who is planning on growing their company, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits is the one book to read. Use this as a manual, I have, and it has made all the difference in the world. It's practical, intelligent, and easy to read and follow.

While everyone is looking for a simple book on strategy this book is excessively simplistic to the extent that it is actually misleading. The only think in it which is mildly useful is the one page strategic plan. It does not cover internal or external analysis which in my mind is the basis of strategy formulation. The book stresses braking down strategic implantation into bite size chunks which is not exactly revolutionary.

I have read many business books over my career as an entrepreneur having founded two successful companies. Mastering the Rockefeller habits is the simplest best book I have ever read on growing and managing a small to medium business. Verne has a great gift of providing just the simple nuggets that you need to know without all of the other stuff. An addition to Verne's book that I have found enormous value in is defining the values in more detail as outlined in Gregg Lederman's book Achieve Brand Integrity: Ten Truths You Must Know to Enhance Employee Performance and Increase Company Profits. He calls these brand concepts and outlines a great approach to defining the beliefs and behaviors that will make these brand concepts come alive. Between these two books you have an amazing view of how to build a successful company.

This book is very special because it gives you a lot of management tools you could start implementing today. It is coming from the heart of a rich business experience. This makes it different from books embedded with theory only. It is a MUST READ for management teams and for everyone with high professional ambitions !
Thank you Verne Harnish !!

Harnish covers some good points for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs but I honestly don't think he did much research on John D. Rockefeller, his methods and the Standard Oil corporation. I gained MUCH more insight into Rockefeller by reading the superbly researched and detailed biography of Rockefeller, "Titan", than I did reading Harnish's book. Harnish actually spends more time discussing case studies of medium to small business than he does on Rockefeller. The cynical view of Harnish is that he and the publishing company used Rockefeller's name and legend to sell the book, while actually providing little insight into the Rockefeller business system. In this instance, I'm inclined to cynicism.

This is a good book for entrepreneurs, not for understanding Rockefeller, his genius or his habits. I would not recommend this to someone interested in learning more about the business system and principles of Rockefeller.