25 Business Tips

Best-kept secrets of the world's best companies

25 tricks of the trade for everything from finding great employees to sparking creativity and even knowing when to pass on a deal.

By Paul Kaihla, Business 2.0 Magazine senior writer

March 23, 2006: 1:05 PM EST

(Business 2.0 Magazine) – Not even the most successful companies in the world are managed by the book. Great management formulas aren't handed down on stone tablets, or found in the writings or speeches of gurus and consultants. They emerge from years of experimentation, trial and error, regime change, reorganizations, crises, and employee suggestions.

In that spirit, Business 2.0 magazine sent senior writer Paul Kaihla and a team of reporters on a quest to find some of the best "best practices" in business today. The companies they interviewed have stumbled upon their own unique methods for doing everything from running meetings and generating product ideas to troubleshooting M&A deals and keeping board directors on their toes.

Following are 25 ideas that are truly gems, broken down into five categories: finance, HR, management, marketing, and R&D. They're methods that help keep some of the best-run companies, like Procter & Gamble (Research), Google (Research), Southwest Airlines (Research), Microsoft (Research), Intel (Research), and Coke (Research), at the top of their game. You've probably never heard of most of these practices -- but you might want to start implementing them tomorrow. Click here for a photo gallery of the full list.