B2B Tech Entrepreneur – David Cummings

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Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

with 9 comments

This morning I had the opportunity to attend the Mastering the Rockefeller Habits workshop facilitated by Verne Harnish at the new St. Regis hotel in Buckhead. Put on by EO Atlanta, the event was over-subscribed and well received. As for the content, Verne does a great job synthesizing ideas from a variety of other well known authors into a cohesive plan for high growth companies to follow.

In the book, the general theme is centered around John D. Rockefeller’s focus on business rhythm, data, and priorities. My takeaway from the event is that when you implement this methodology, the business and corresponding team members have a process to follow that actually eliminates wasteful activities and focuses everything on what is needed to be successful.

In my company, we don’t follow all the steps recommended by the book, but we do do the following:

  • One page strategic plan with our mission, vision, values, BHAG, three year goals, annual goals, quarterly goals, and several other pieces of information
  • Scoreboard which, for us, is a large LCD TV in our lobby that has a Google Spreadsheet with key performance indicators related to revenue recognition and new customer wins
  • Rhythm of meetings with daily check-ins, weekly tacticals, monthly strategics, monthly all-hands, and quarterly off-sites

The book is well worth the time of any entrepreneur serious about building a high growth business.

Written by davidcummings

July 30, 2009 at 5:06 pm

9 Responses

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  1. Quarter by quarter we’ve been implementing more of Verne’s habits and they really make a huge difference. At first it seemed like too big a time commitment, but we’ve seen that having the roadmap and agreed upon processes really does wonders for internal communication, efficiency and morale. Highly recommended.

    Ray King

    August 2, 2009 at 3:04 pm

  2. We’ve found that once the systems are in place, time is actually freed up. You literally get more productivity with less effort than not having a system in place.

    davidcummings

    August 2, 2009 at 6:19 pm

  3. [...] recent project has been updating our internal KPI dashboard based on the recommendation in the book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. Currently, we’re tracking the following on our [...]

  4. [...] monthly financials review. As part of our rhythm, data, and priorities, using the terminology from Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, we try to have consistent, repeatable processes for everything we do. The monthly financials [...]

  5. [...] Update our One Page Strategic Plan [...]

  6. [...] goals. In my company, we set our goals on a quarterly, annual, and three year basis as part of our one page strategic plan. My advice is to do a one page strategic plan, update it quarterly at an off-site, and make it part [...]

  7. [...] in your company. Giving thanks, and celebrating, go together and should be part of the company rhythm. Here’s what we do to give thanks and [...]

  8. [...] a comment » We employ many of the strategies from the book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits including the One Page Strategic Plan (OPSP). For this year, and going forward, we decided to [...]

  9. Hello. Fantastic job, if I wasn’t so busy with my school work I read your total site. Thanks!

    Edwin Panama

    February 4, 2010 at 3:26 am


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