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

By: Jim Stengel

Narrated by: Marc Cashman

Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

Ten years of research uncover the secret source of growth and profit...

Those who center their business on improving people’s lives have a growth rate triple that of competitors and outperform the market by a huge margin. They dominate their categories, create new categories, and maximize profit in the long term.

Pulling from a unique 10 year growth study involving 50,000 brands, Jim Stengel shows how the world's 50 best businesses - as diverse as Method, Red Bull, Lindt, Petrobras, Samsung, Discovery Communications, Visa, Zappos, and Innocent - have a cause and effect relationship between financial performance and their ability to connect with fundamental human emotions, hopes, values, and greater purposes.

In fact, over the 2000s an investment in these companies - “The Stengel 50” - would have been 400 percent more profitable than an investment in the S&P 500.

Grow is based on unprecedented empirical research, inspired (when Stengel was Global Marketing Officer of Procter & Gamble) by a study of companies growing faster than P&G.

After leaving P&G in 2008, Stengel designed a new study, in collaboration with global research firm Millward Brown Optimor.

This study tracked the connection over a 10 year period between financial performance and customer engagement, loyalty, and advocacy.

Then, in a further investigation of what goes on in the “black box” of the consumer’s mind, Stengel and his team tapped into neuroscience research to look at customer engagement and measure subconscious attitudes to determine whether the top businesses in the Stengel Study were more associated with higher ideals than were others.

Grow thus deftly blends timeless truths about human behavior and values into an action framework - how you discover, build, communicate, deliver, and evaluate your ideal. Through colorful stories drawn from his fascinating personal experiences and “deep dives” that bring out the true reasons for such successes as the Pampers, HP, Discovery Channel, Jack Daniels, and Zappos, Grow unlocks the code for 21st century business success.

©2011 Jim Stengel (P)2011 Random House

Critic reviews

“By combining a scientist's rigor with a storyteller's gifts, Jim Stengel has produced a brilliant, must-read book supremely suited to our times.” (Arianna Huffington)

“When you start reading Grow, you may well feel a little skeptical about the ideal and its bottom-line value. But you’ll soon become intrigued – and then utterly convinced. Jim Stengel shares his beliefs and his experience with a generosity bordering on the reckless; and has the hard, clean numbers to bear his teachings out.” (Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP)

“ Grow is a tool kit for turning the power of ideals…into competitive advantage and sustainable growth.” (Robert A. McDonald, chairman, president, and CEO, Procter & Gamble)

Well Worth the Time to Listen

I love the message of this book! It was hard to "listen" to at time, as the text is more intended to be read; however, I found listening to is then made my reading for reference easy and impactful.

Connecting the dots of Organizational leadership

GROW has helped me connect the dots with messaging and consulting I deliver on a daily basis. One of my favorite coaching questions is, "What's your goal?" After reading Grow I understand that the Goal should always be the Brand Purpose or ideal. So now my coaching will include a second question that has a much greater impact on the outcomes of the entire business. "What's your goal? And How are you going to accomplish that Goal while implementing your Brand Ideal?" :) Thanks Jim!