{"id":30763,"date":"2011-03-09T08:10:18","date_gmt":"2011-03-09T13:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=30763"},"modified":"2011-05-31T11:42:38","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T15:42:38","slug":"the-five-principles-of-running-a-successful-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/03\/the-five-principles-of-running-a-successful-business\/","title":{"rendered":"The Five Principles of Running a Successful Business"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>George<\/a>
George David, former CEO of UTC, addresses a forum of local business leaders and faculty, staff, and students from UConn and Trinity College. Photos by Jeremy Pollack<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

George David, who led United Technologies Corp. (UTC) during a \u201cremarkable period of change and growth,\u201d said last week that the keys to a company\u2019s success can be summed up in five words: productivity, globalization, technology, portfolio, and organization.<\/p>\n

If the top managers of a corporation focus on those themes and act accordingly, then success will almost certainly follow, said David, who joined UTC in 1975, became its president and chief operating officer in 1992, chief executive officer in 1994, and chairman in 1997. He stepped down as CEO in 2008, concluding a 14-year stint during which UTC\u2019s earnings per share increased sixfold, outshining its major rival, General Electric.<\/p>\n

David was the featured speaker at a Hartford Club luncheon sponsored by the UConn School of Business, Trinity College, and the Hartford investment management firm of Bradley Foster & Sargent Inc. In attendance were local business leaders, and faculty, staff, and students from the two schools.<\/p>\n

In his introductory remarks, Robert H. Bradley, president and CEO of the investment firm, said David had clearly earned his \u201cplace in the pantheon of CEOs in the United States who had taken good companies to greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<p>George<\/a>
David spoke about the principles of success in business.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Not only did David\u2019s leadership result in remarkable prosperity for UTC and its shareholders, but during his tenure, UTC was a model corporate citizen, contributing to the communities in which its subsidiaries are based and also reducing its carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n

In recognition of his achievements, David has been named to several \u201cBest CEO\u201d lists, including those of BusinessWeek<\/em>, Barron\u2019s<\/em>, Institutional Investor<\/em>, IndustryWeek,<\/em> and Worth<\/em> magazines. Indeed, during David\u2019s tenure at UTC, the corporation\u2019s total shareholder return ranked first among the Dow 30 industrials.<\/p>\n

The theme of David\u2019s talk, \u201cLessons from a CEO,\u201d focused on the five objectives that senior management teams should strive for. The first is productivity. \u201cI learned at UTC that you can always do things 10 times better,\u201d he noted. The best way to become more productive, he said, is to collapse the sequential into the simultaneous, thus eliminating waste from the system and creating a single combined operation.<\/p>\n

In an era of developing nations with fast-growing economies, thinking and acting globally is critically important. \u201cGet there first\u201d was one of David\u2019s goals in guiding UTC. When David first arrived on the scene. Today, that figure is higher than 60 percent.<\/p>\n

about 25 percent of UTC\u2019s revenue came from outside the United States<\/p>\n

Technology is another important success factor. David said UTC has one of the largest research and development budgets of any major corporation, which has allowed innovation to flourish.<\/p>\n

Fourth on his list is portfolio, meaning the collection of businesses that make up a corporation. Many CEOs, he said, suffer from \u201cportfolio anxiety.\u201d But under David\u2019s leadership, UTC shed some companies and acquired others. By the time he left, UTC was \u201ca powerful set of businesses \u2013 iconic trademark companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lastly, organization is a key to success. Clear lines of authority must exist, and a leader should be prepared to listen to his subordinates. Said David: \u201cI said yes to 85 percent of what [my managers] wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following his speech, David took questions from the audience. Asked about the U.S. economy, he said he believes it\u2019s in \u201cquite serious trouble,\u201d due in large measure to the federal government\u2019s massive debt, which is going to be \u201ca drag on the economy for a very long time.\u201d He attributed much of the problem to the government\u2019s bailout of the financial services industry, which, he alleged, acted irresponsibly after it was deregulated. He said the deregulation of the financial services industry resulted from the massive amounts of money that sector poured into political campaigns.<\/p>\n

If he had his way, David said, he would \u201cblow up special interests\u201d so that politicians\u2019 votes couldn\u2019t be bought.<\/p>\n

\"<p>Robert<\/a>
George David, center, and Nathan Ives, second from left, director of alumni relations for the UConn Business School, with students from UConn's Business Connections Learning Community. From left, Robert Simpson '14, Matthew Scatchell '14, and Melissa Touger '14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"<p>George<\/a>
George David shakes hands with Christopher Earley, dean of the UConn School of Business.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George David, former CEO of UTC, addressed a forum co-sponsored by the School of Business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-30763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gallery","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 07:36:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30763"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36170,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30763\/revisions\/36170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30763"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=30763"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}