Tool Box
Issue No. 42 - August/September 2008
Harnish growth with Rockefeller rules
Rapid growth guru Verne Harnish, one of US Fortune magazine’s Top 10 small business minds, will present his Go for Growth summit in Adelaide in September and he says SMEs can learn a lot from John D Rockefeller.
Rockefeller was a strict disciplinarian whose business habits made him a titan of American business in the early 20th century and Verne has built the great man’s principles into a growth framework.
“There is a checklist of 10 main habits that revolve around three main disciplines,” Verne says.
“First: the importance of picking just a handful of priorities - three is best - for the company each quarter and each year and having the discipline to focus on just one at a time rather than multitasking your organization.
“Second: the importance of gathering both quantitative and qualitative data daily and weekly to give you quick visibility into the health of the organization - a way to see patterns sooner than your competition, and to help you and your people make better, quicker decisions. This goes way beyond your standard P&Ls and Excel spreadsheets companies spend time staring at.
“Third: the importance of establishing an effective daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual meeting rhythm to address the number-one issue in any
firm, once you hire your first employee, which is communication!
“This rhythm of meetings must start with the first two partners/employees and continue forever as the organization grows.”
Verne recommends the SME owner focus on one or two of the 10 habits each 90 days. It takes two to three years to get the habits fully operational “and a lifetime to perfect them”.
For any business, five critical decisions anchor effective business strategy. Verne’s organisation outlines them in a Gazelles’ One-Page Strategic Planning document.
“Decision 1: the organization needs to know where it’s going long-term – even start-ups. Jim Collins calls this...
