Clients feed you. When we first hung up a shingle, we had a corporate dog, a mascot. She was a border collie called Pepper, and like all border collies, she loved to work, she was faithful, and she was curious. All of which we thought was particularly emblematic of our culture and mission at BRCG: look deeply at what's going on, follow intently the moving objects, keep watch over our clients' interests, and "protect the herd" from wolves. Pepper was also a fairly savvy observer of our operations. When clients came to visit us, we usually had fresh-baked refreshments waiting for them. Pepper learned that clients are suckers for the sad-and-wise eyes of a Border Collie, and she was usually able to cadge a free morsel from the refreshment plate. Pepper learned our most fundamental value sooner than most of our newly-hired colleagues: clients feed you. So, pay attention to them, watch them, take care of them. Muffins are bound to follow.

Follow the evidence. Jumping off of anything is a risky endeavor. It may be fun while it lasts, but the landing can change your perspective. We think that running a business based on preconceived ideas or received wisdom -- or any other sacred-cow paradigm -- is a little bit like jumping off of a skyscraper . You're going to move REALLY fast and have a terrific view, but you may not like the result at the end of the trip. We think businesses ought to do things that are demonstrably effective and make sense for them. And the only way to know what's effective and what makes sense is to research it. BRCG's  advisory  services are not based on intuition or "black arts" (at least, we will not admit such!). They are based on solid research into best practices. We think it's important that organizations do not operate on the "if it feels good (or sounds good)" paradigm. Find the evidence for what works. Isolate the active ingredients of success, which are repeatable and scalable and teachable. Then repeat...often.

People matter. If you will pardon us a bit of cliché-mongering, "people are the most important asset a company has."  (We might have just thrown up a bit inside our keyboard as we typed that.)  May we explain? Organizational performance depends on people, on individuals performing their tasks as expected. And those individual performances depend on three essential ingredients: attitude, skills, and knowledge. When an employee is not doing what you pay him to do, the failure comes down to some short-coming in those three areas. This not only hurts you, the employer. But it also hurts him, the employee. And it hurts his colleagues. It hurts your customers. It hurts your suppliers. When someone does not do what you pay him to do, the butterfly effect can be significant. And because he matters -- and because all the other people caught in the draft of that butterfly's wings matter -- BRCG wants to help him do what you want him to do. This is not just a win-win arrangement. It's a win-win-win-win-win-ad infinitim arrangement. People matter.

Think about the box.  How many times has some consultant touted his unconventional creativity by trotting out the shop-worn cliche of "thinking outside the box"? Ugh! You can hardly swing a dead buzzword around without hitting one business cliche or another, and "thinking outside the box" may be the worst (especially if the box is a paradigm that's recently been re-purposed). And honestly, we've gotten so good at thinking outside the box that we've forgotten there was even a box to begin with. We think that's too bad. Because sometimes the answers lie inside that old box we've been to think outside of. Oh, we're big advocates of unconventional thinking. But maybe what makes us good is that we remember that outside-the-box thinking depends on remembering what the box was there to do in the first place. Maybe the simplest answer -- the most elegant and clean solution -- is to put everything back into the box and make what's already there work. Simple, elegant, obvious. And unconventional.