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 (big hairy audacious goal), 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.
David Cummings on Startups 
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.
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.
Hello. Fantastic job, if I wasn’t so busy with my school work I read your total site. Thanks!
This book is truly a must read… implementing the strategies that are shared here will definitely make a difference in your business.
Hi David!
I just found your posts via Google search, after loooking for “google docs spreadsheet dashboard”. I’m looking to build Google spreadsheet dashboards for a few businesses.
Several of your posts touch on the subject – they’ve been extremely helpful!
Imagine my pleasant surprise to subsequently learn that “this David guy” runs Pardot!
LOL!
I’m a former (very satisfied) customer.
Love the company’s work.
Thanks for the nice comment! I’m glad you found the spreadsheet useful.