Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

I recently found a most interesting business book mostly by accident. It's called Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and it's based on the leadership and management philosophies of John D. Rockefeller the legendary businessman of the early twentieth century.

Though many might wonder what we could learn in this digital age from such an old timer, the book by Verne Harnish is a basic how-to guide to applying the Rockefeller habits in today's fast paced business world.

Thus far, we have applied one of these principles to our business at Henry Russell Bruce with the positive effect of moving discussion and decisions along toward more rapid decision making. A great first step that comes directly from the book. It is a return to basic fundamentals that we often overlook in our rapidly evolving global marketplace. It is simple, practical advice on running your business.

Rockefeller believed in three basic habits and lived by them (quoting Harnish now):

1. Priorities - Does the organization have objective Top 5 priorities for the year and the quarter and a clear Top 1 priority along with the appropriate theme?

2. Data - Does the organization have sufficient data on a daily and weekly basis to provide insight into how the organization is running and what the market is demanding? Does everyone in the organization have at least one key daily or weekly metric driving his or her performance.

3. Rhythm - Does the organization have an effective rhythm of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual meetings to maintain alignment and drive accountability.

As a first step, senior management team at HRB meets daily, while the 2 partners have implemented weekly hour-long meetings to discuss the urgent issues and decisions of the day. This, I believe, has helped us collaborate more effectively and moved us more efficiently toward a new business model we are adopting - growing our Web and digital footprint, while maintaining our traditional agency products and services.

Harnish touches on a host of crucial topics, including delegation, systems and structures, the importance of data, business priorities, market dynamics and barriers to growth, among others.

One of the most interesting sections is labeled Mastering A One-Page Strategic Plan, Keeping it simple keeps it clear. And, the book offers a template for the one-page plan.

The book is full of real world case studies of companies Harnish found that follow these Rockefeller Habits and go on to grow and prosper.


Have you gotten back to fundamentals or read Mastering the Rockefeller Habits? We welcome your comments.

Jim Thebeau
CEO, Henry Russell Bruce
jthebeau@hrb-ideas.com