Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm (Hardcover)

by Verne Harnish (Author) "Executive Summary: There are three barriers to growth common among all growing firms: the need for the executive team to grow as leaders in their..." (more)
Key Phrases: measurable brand promise, quarterly theme, weekly measures, Planning Pyramid, Federal Express, Bank Financing (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"The undisputed expert in helping entrepreneurs grow their firms [has] now brought you his powerful ideas in book form." -- Ted Leonsis, Vice Chair, AOL Owner, Washington Capitals

Product Description
Business guru Verne Harnish's firm Gazelles has brought hundreds of businesses to fast-growth profitability. Now he shares entrepreneurial secrets in this must-read business primer. Harnish has discovered John D. Rockefeller's underlying strategy. Further study uncovered three winning habits:

*Priorities: A few rules remain consistent with a firm's core values and long-term goal. Others change regularly -- what Harnish calls the Top 5 and Top 1 of 5.

*Data: Key metrics should be measured over time (Smart Numbers); short-term metrics provide a tighter focus on an aspect of the business (Critical Numbers).

*Rhythm: A well-organized set of meetings keep everyone aligned and accountable.

In addition to case studies, a bonus chapter co-authored by Rich Russakoff reveals winning tactics to get banks in competition to finance your business venture. MASTERING THE ROCKEFELLER HABITS provides necessary tools for making strategically smart decisions and for keeping everyone aligned and accountable to those decisions.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Select Books (NY); 1st edition (March 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590790154
• ISBN-13: 978-1590790151
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,036 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entrepreneur Of The Year winner - This is a Must-Read!, November 13, 2002

By	Cynthia Driskill (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Habits equal success, April 12, 2002

By	Roger Scheumann (Bethesda, MD United States) - See all my reviews

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.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "Bible" for Entreprenuers, December 1, 2004

By	Danielle Mulvey "Maverick Strategist" (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.