Scaling Up : How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0)

Bumping into each other all day doesn’t substitute for tightly focused team discussions. And a lot of that bumping is causing unnecessary interruptions. Casual encounters fail to take advantage of the three most powerful tools a leader has in getting team performance: 1. Peer pressure 2. Collective intelligence 3. Clear communication By holding one

Between startup and the first million or two in revenue, the key driver is revenue (sell like hell). The focus is on proving that a market exists for your services.

Repetition encompasses consistency. Finish what you start. Mean what you say. And don’t say one thing and do something else. Consistency is an important aspect of repetition.

The leader’s final job is “to keep the main thing the main thing”

Because of these needed transitions, it’s often best to have some of the original functional leaders head business units — maybe head up expansion to a new country or lead the launch of a product line — so they can maintain direct operational control. New functional heads are then recruited who have specific domain expertise (sales, marketing, HR,

“If your competitive advantage depends on your people creating something valuable and distinctive, then your workforce can’t be normal.”

Fixing people issues for your team can also mean “firing” a client. Unreasonable clients who mistreat your employees and disrupt your business can become an important energy drain. Firing such clients can gain the manager huge respect internally. The negative financial impact is usually counteracted by the immediate rise in the spirits and producti

Let the Values bake for a year, testing their validity at the next several quarterly planning sessions. Ask the leadership team, “Are there plenty of examples where we lived these Values?” If there are, you likely are talking about a Core Value. If there are not, then it might have been a wish-list item or a Core Value that has weakened significant

Finding employees’ strengths and focusing workers on those assets is the most powerful people-management tool we can suggest.

If the organization misses the mark, you have three options: 1. Repeat the Critical Number in the next quarter if it’s still crucial that the organization achieve the target. We’ve seen this when a quality or a customer service score needs to be reached. 2. Move on to another Critical Number if you sense that enough momentum was created with the pr