cover image Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies

Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies

Jim Stengel. Crown, $27.50 (304p) ISBN 978-0-307-72035-1

Profit and ethical behavior need not stand in opposition, argues management consultant Stengel; in fact, maximum growth and high ideals are inseparable. Companies with ideals of improving people’s lives at the center of all they do outperform the market by a huge margin. During his time at Procter & Gamble, he conceived and executed the Stengel Study of Business Growth, a 10-year-growth survey of more than 50,000 businesses around the world. The study identified 50 brands with extraordinary growth: retailers, luxury brands, and high-technology enterprises. His analysis suggests that those companies’ ideals have positively influenced their success—that they have a brand ideal, a shared goal of improving people’s lives. To back this up, he presents stories from his own career and also case studies of such strong brands as Method, Jack Daniels, and Zappos. He presents “must-dos” for companies hoping to turn their ideals into gold. While his points are solid and it’s comforting to know that there’s a connection between a company’s desire to improve people’s lives and their bottom line, the real content is slim and repetitive. (Jan.)