Why your business needs a three-legged stool
Back when I was in business school, my economics teacher — an extremely bright scholar born in Bombay, today’s Mumbai, who wore an eternal stern frown — always had a unique answer to every question we posed: “All you need is a three-legged stool.”
His answer always intrigued me, and I must admit that even after a semester hearing his answer to multiple economics and business questions, I still could not decipher the intended meaning.
But after decades operating within different business scenarios, companies, countries and roles, I finally found the enlightenment needed to decipher his code and understand the importance of his answer.
Here is my take: The analogy with a “three-legged stool” is not just a cute phrase, there’s real business wisdom behind it, and I will tell you why. So, we start with the basic question:
Why a three-legged stool and not a four-legged one?
In physics: Three beats four in simple terms:
- Three points always touch the ground. Any three points define a flat surface (a plane). So if your stool has three legs, it will always sit firmly, even on slightly uneven ground.
- Four legs can wobble. With four legs, if the floor isn’t perfectly level or one leg is a tiny bit shorter, one leg ends up “in the air.” Very annoying!
That’s why camera tripods, surveying equipment and many stools built for rough ground use three legs, not four. Less material, more stability.
In business: Some parallel to physics
For example, the foundation of most small and growing businesses falls on these “three key legs”:
- Value (the idea): What problem do you solve and why should anyone care?
- Market and money: Who are your customers and how do you make money from them?
- Execution and delivery: Can you deliver what you promise, consistently and profitably?
Your key business principles are your legs, and the logic is always the same: If you remove one leg, the stool falls.
- Great idea, no paying customers: It becomes a hobby, not a business.
- Customers paying, poor delivery: You will get bad reviews and churn.
- Great operations, no clear value or differentiation: You’re just another option competing on price.
You might ask: “If three legs are good, wouldn’t four or five ‘legs’ be even better? More strategies, more pillars, more everything?” In theory, maybe. In real life, more legs can mean more wobbling — or in business terms, more complexity.
- Too many priorities: Nothing gets done well.
- Too many “key initiatives”: No one really knows what matters.
- Too many business models at once: Confusion for the team and the customer.
Just like a four-legged stool on an uneven floor, all those extra “legs” look solid, but in practice one of them is always a little off. Things rock, shake and feel unstable. A three-legged stool in business forces focus and simplicity in execution:
- What’s our core value?
- Who are we really serving and how do we make money?
- How do we deliver reliably?
Once those three elements are solid, you can add variations and refinements. But you don’t start with six legs and hope they magically line up.
What about starting or reengineering? Same principle.
Whether you’re launching a new venture or fixing an existing one, the “three-legged stool” philosophy adds focus and simplicity:
- Don’t just ask, “How do I grow?” Ask: “Which leg is weakest right now — value, market or execution?”
- Don’t just push more sales if your delivery is already shaky. That’s like sitting on a wobbly stool. It doesn’t end well.
- Don’t just improve operations if your value and pricing are unclear. That’s cleaning a leg on a nonworking stool.
You don’t need perfection. You need enough strength in each leg so the business can be stable.
How to use this philosophy in real life
Here’s a simple way to put this into practice. Create your stool by writing:
- Leg 1 – Value: What problem do we solve? For whom?
- Leg 2 – Market and money: Who pays us? How do they find us? Are we profitable?
- Leg 3 – Execution: How do we deliver? What tends to break when we get busy?
Keep it simple. If you can’t explain it clearly, that’s a sign of weakness.
Do a quick “wobble check” every month and rate each leg from one to 10:
- Value: Do customers instantly “get” why they need us?
- Market and money: Are we getting enough good leads and making real profit?
- Execution: Are we delivering well without constant stress and firefighting?
Whichever leg gets the lowest score becomes your priority for improvement. No need to be a genius at all three. But your business needs strength in all three. Stability and growth will come from consistent focus and management of your three legs and their ramifications.
In the end, my stern-faced economics professor was right. In life, as in business, we need a stable platform to move forward. Businesses that survive and grow are not the ones with the most “legs” or the fanciest strategies. They’re the ones that can stand simply and strongly on three solid business principles.
Raúl Burgos, who has more than 30 years of business experience, is president and managing partner of Global 1080 Business Solutions, a consulting firm specializing in Latin America, C-level advisory, strategic growth and operational improvement, and of G1080 Consulting, which focuses on small and midsize businesses and startups. He is also the founder of the Puerto Rico Business Group on LinkedIn, a network of more than 30,000 professionals committed to Puerto Rico’s business environment.
