Think Big, Act Small

Increasing profits and improving a company's financial performance have traditionally been done in one of three ways: by increasing revenues, cutting costs or downsizing, or cooking the books. For Think Big, Act Small, Author Jason Jennings and his research team evaluated more than 100,000 American companies and discovered nine which have increased revenues and profits by 10 percent or more for more than ten consecutive years - the top one-hundredth of one percent of all American companies.

These companies, Jennings learned, use another strategy to consistently increase their performance. They have a culture based on a simple precept: they think big, but they act small. They think big about ideas, about solving customer problems, making better products, and creating value. Yet they never stop behaving like start-ups. They remain humble, they treat every employee like an owner, and their managers do not mind being hands-on on the front lines.