Our Principles

These nine tenets guide how we do business and conduct ourselves on a daily basis.

Relationships

Building relationships is not something we do, it’s who we are. We view each person as unique and we strive to connect with them and help them succeed. Our ability to simultaneously attend to client work while actively managing relationships is paramount to our success, and we know that small investments of time and information establish and nurture lifelong relationships with colleagues, contacts, partners and clients.

Integrity

We do what is right, and we consider the integrity of our people one of the most important markers of who we are as a firm. Integrity involves bringing your personal character and your professional conduct in line with one another. It requires us to be forthright, and willing to stand up for what we value and believe to be true. It also means caring enough about the people around us to do the right thing at the right time.

Service

We act in the best interest of our clients and strive to deliver service of extraordinarily high quality. Doing so means producing timely, original, insightful, and accurate deliverables and advice. It also means being extraordinarily responsive. We under-promise and over-deliver on our commitments, are accessible and respond to clients and colleagues within 24 hours, and have a courteous, professional staff that promptly answer our phones during business hours.

Excellence

We hold each other and ourselves to an impeccable standard of excellence in everything we do. We produce work of unparalleled quality, and attend to every detail, no matter how small. Our goal is to stay a step ahead—to continually meet and exceed client expectations—and our ideas keep us at the forefront of innovation. We don’t benchmark; we set the bar—for quality, creativity, knowledge, and talent.

Teamwork

We create the Firm’s fate and we choose success—together. Though unique individuals and entrepreneurs by trade, our firm is only as strong as the sum of our efforts. Collaboration and communication make us smarter, and we achieve our goals through mutual support, candor, and respect.

Entrepreneurialism

We are entrepreneurs first—before we are coaches, methodologists, professional staff, or consultants. We all own the Firm’s future and we each take responsibility for our own success, the success of each other, and the success of the Firm. We succeed by aggressively pursuing opportunity and anticipating client problems. We recognize we can easily lose this element of our culture, and we must breed passion and persistence to protect it.

Stewardship

Our most valuable asset is our reputation, so we take great pride in our brand and do everything we can to protect and to enhance it. We use our reputation as a means of building relationships and growing the firm—and if we ever diminish our reputation we will jeopardize our future.

Leadership

We expect everyone in our Firm to lead—to look out for the wellbeing of the Firm and the people in it, to be accountable for results and to expect the same of others, to make tough decisions when it’s necessary to do so, and to be a life-long learner. Leadership at CRA is a privilege and an obligation, not an option.

The Long-Term View

We know that how we manage our people, our clients, our profits, and our assets must secure the best interests of all involved not just for tomorrow, but for many years to come. We do so knowing that we cannot predict the future, and that our greatest security lies in planning for the worst and expecting and delivering the best. While this means we may not always generate as much revenue or complete work as easily in the short term, we are willing to make this sacrifice to realize a more fulfilling benefit in the long term.

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