In search of an answer that could be supported with empirical proof, Michael E. Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed, along with their team of researchers at Deloitte, embarked on a daunting quest. They explore the road best traveled and what they learned is shared in their recently published book, The Three Rules: How Exceptional Companies Think.

From a database of more than 25,000 companies from hundreds of industries covering 45 years, they uncovered 344 companies that qualified as statistically “exceptional.” But after five years of research, their attempt to find a consistent pattern of behavior that separated the exceptional companies from the pack led only to humbling dead ends and blind alleys. They were stumped.

It was only when they shifted their emphasis and examined how exceptional companies think, instead of how they act, that they were able to discern the signal in the noise.

The fruits of their quest are revealed in The Three Rules, a book that provides the hard evidence useful to help leaders set their agendas and make critical decisions despite ambiguity and uncertainty. The rules are lodestones that point the way toward profitable paths forward. The rules will show you not the roads less traveled, but help you identify the roads best traveled.

What are The Three Rules?

o Better before cheaper: Compete on differentiators other than price.

o Revenue before cost: Drive superior profitability with higher prices or higher volumes, not lower cost.

o There are no other rules: Change anything/everything in order to abide by the first two rules.

These rules capture how the high-performing outliers deliver superior performance over the long run, despite facing the same constraints as competitors. The Three Rules provides powerful and detailed examples: Merck in the pharmaceutical industry, Abercrombie & Fitch in retail and Maytag in appliances as well as smaller, less headline- grabbing companies like Weis Markets in grocery and Heartland Express in trucking. When faced with difficult decisions — do a deal or build from within?; diversify or stick to the knitting?; take a risk or play it safe? — these three rules can guide business leaders to make the right choices to create and hew to a path to exceptional performance. The more persistently these rules are pursued, the better the chances of beating the competition—and the odds—and becoming truly exceptional.

To check out Michael Raynor‘s background, please click here. To watch a video during which he discusses exceptional companies, please click here. Please click here to check out Mumtaz Ahmed‘s background.