The 3 Rules for Success – Harvard Business Review

April 16, 2013 By Megan Stacey Leave a Comment

If you can read only one business magazine a month, I recommend Harvard Business Review. How come? I like the proven practical advice for any company, large or small.

For instance, this month the cover reads “We studied 25,453 companies over 44 years to find THE 3 Rules for Success”.

This article is written by Michael E. Raynor who is a director at Deloitte Services LP and Muntaz Ahmed who is a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP and the chief strategy officer for Deloitte LLP.

I like its irreverence, supported with indisputable facts.

What they found was that companies who have done well over a long period of time follow seemingly elementary rules:

1. Better before cheaper – in other words, compete on differentiators other than price.
2. Revenue before cost – that is, prioritize increasing revenue over reducing costs.
3. There are no other rules – if you must change anything, follow Rules 1 and 2.

It is not what the leaders of these companies do that have made them, and kept them successful; it’s how they think. These three rules are deep-rooted philosophies, either consciously or unconsciously communicated from the top down.

So pick up a copy of the mag, or read it on line at

http://hbr.org/2013/04/three-rules-for-making-a-company-truly-great/ar/1