To paraphrase Jay Z, "Beyoncé is not a businesswoman. She's a business, woman." And so it made total sense when Harvard Business School announced that it would publish a case study about the perfectly executed secret-release of Beyoncé's self-titled album, a visual masterpiece that arrived on iTunes unannounced — no promotional tour, no singles, nothing — on December 13, 2013.

Now the report, by Anita Elbrse and Stacie Smith, is out. It includes interviews with executives from Parkwood Entertainment, the management company Beyoncé founded in 2008 (she's president and CEO, naturally), and it reads a bit like a suspense novel: Could Beyoncé and her team really pull this off? How would they avoid leaks? Would Beyoncé ever even finish the album? Would iTunes get on board? Would retailers shut Beyoncé out as a result? Would the release go down without a single technical glitch?

Of course, we know the answers: As with everything Beyoncé does, her surprise release was ***flawless. But the study is expertly paced to make you think you're reading a brand new story. And buried within are some gems about the greatest living entertainer and a marketing plan so legendary, Harvard geniuses needed to analyze it. Here you go:

1. Beyoncé has a one-hour attention span for talking about business.

"She has a really good sense of the business side, but she doesn't like to live there always," says Lee Anne Callahan-Longo, general manager of Parkwood. "We often laugh about how an hour into a business meeting, she will get up and will start walking around. I can see it then — that I've lost her, and that I have satiated the amount of business that she wants to discuss that day. I'll usually say something like, 'Let's stop. You are going to say 'yes,' but you are not listening to me anymore.' She knows herself, will laugh, and say 'You are absolutely right, I am done.' Because at the end of the day she is an artist, and her passion for art drives her."

2. She recorded Beyoncé in the Hamptons, in the summer of 2012, while nursing Blue Ivy.

She rented a house for a month and invited collaborators including Hit-Boy, Sia, and The-Dream to work there. She had "five or six rooms going, each set up as a studio," says Callahan-Longo, "and would go from room to room and say things like, 'I think that song needs that person's input.'" She also had dinner with her team every night at the house.

3. Parkwood executives played "XO" and "Drunk in Love" to get Facebook on board with their launch plan.

"We knew they wanted to talk but we didn't know what about," says Charles Porch, who works on strategic partnerships for Facebook and Instagram. "The songs really blew us away. And it becomes clear to us that they were looking for a partner who would have their back, keep things quiet, and be able to move quickly when it came time to not be quiet and reach a wide group of music fans."

4. Beyoncé recorded close to 70 songs before narrowing the album down to 14 … and there were songs that were not on the album as late as October.

She was finalizing the album down to the wire. "Just imagine how that complicates getting the publishing clearances, and shooting the videos," says Jim Sabey, Parkwood's head of worldwide marketing. Adds Callahan-Longo: "Even the final fourteen tracks were originally seventeen songs — she was putting them together like a mad scientist, saying 'I hear this song becoming part of this song."

5. The last video was shot in mid November.

All were produced within a 12-week period in the fall.

6. Forty Columbia Records staffers thought they were going to a Christmas party — but were instead finally told about the album.

"We had this whole Christmas spread — it was lovely," says Sabey. "But some were asking, 'why are we here?' So we led them into a conference room that was set up theater-style, and basically played the album visually from beginning to end." They were allowed to go home after that, but they were told not to talk about it or tweet about it until it was unleashed on the world that night.

The rest is history.

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Patti Greco Writer Patti Greco is a freelance writer and editor based in Brooklyn.

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