The Performance Management Conundrum

Senior Leaders who have performance management and employee engagement as a strategic objective face a conundrum. As we continue to dig into corporate needs, the same message continues to come through. Senior management knows that the economy isn’t going to allow them to resume the upward trajectory of growth like the good old days. As we continue to discuss ways to achieve these objectives, the conversation always comes back to performance management: Doing more with what you have. As any leader knows, …Read More

Large cash positions coupled with historically low interest rates make mergers and acquisitions an obvious strategic choice for companies to significantly improve their performance. As companies increase their Mergers and Acquisitions activity, there is a need for a well thought through program assure the successful integration of new companies with different cultures and business processes. It is reported by KPMG that …Read More

I was talking to several CEOs the other day about the challenges of today’s business climate and the parts of our businesses where we can continue to realize productivity gains. We all agreed that opportunities existed throughout our businesses to improve productivity, but quickly honed in on a discussion around how well our employees were aligned with our Vision, Mission, Values and Corporate Objectives. Everyone squirmed for a moment thinking about organizational alignment and organizational development, …Read More

I was speaking with a client the other day who was expressing frustration with being able to align his organization with the company’s strategies, vision, mission, values and tactics. He felt as if the yearly off site meetings and quarterly communications to employees weren’t causing the company to build a culture and performance mindset around those. He mused that there must be a better way to accelerate behaviors in the organization and create a culture of strategic execution. As we spoke further, we talked about the need for:

• Clear and concise strategies, mission, values and tactics
• Constant communications to all levels of the organization
• Measures that are cascaded down to each level that support the strategic initiatives
• Accountability for all managers and employees
• Full transparency in the company
• The ability to have communications both up and down about what is working and what isn’t
• An understanding of the company’s strategic and operating gaps

We agreed that a significant shift in culture and performance was a difficult objective. We also agreed during our conversation that cultural change isn’t achieved by yearly reviews and occasional communications. The tactics to implement such a change need to be well thought through and executed with rigor. It is one of the single most important set of activities for the company’s leaders and needed to be a daily activity. He would have benefitted from a change management framework such as Group50’s Business Hierarchy of Needs® to guide his organization’s strategic planning, change management and implementation efforts. As we talked further, we agreed to keep a dialogue going and focus on strategic alignment and performance management as part of our on-going work with his organization. Several articles with further information on this topic include:

• Performance Management as a Business Strategy
• Organizational Alignment: The Good and Bad News
• Cascade
• Morphing Evaluations Into Strategic Execution

About the author: Jim Gitney is the CEO of Group50^® and specializes in the development and implementation of manufacturing and supply chain strategies. Jim and the Group50 team are all former executives with well-known manufacturing and distribution companies who understand what it takes to put together and manage the implementation of a successful strategic plan. Group50 has designed a series of strategic assessments, workshops and strategic execution tools that eliminate the existence of Anti-Strategy. You can reach us at +1 (626) 644-9746 or send a note to info@group50.com.

Management of a project, regardless of the specific intent and outcome, can generally be accomplished using fairly universal tools and techniques with a significant amount of focus and discipline.

A team approach has been shown to gain ‘ownership’ in the project and a consistent and uniform means of communication allows participants and stakeholders to stay abreast of the project by providing feedback to the team and the project leader(s). As a business leader, you frequently find yourself faced with the dilemma of having to define, justify, and implement a significant project or program, that at its conception, is generally just a collection of ideas, proposals, ‘back of the envelope’ calculations or benefits.

To bring these together takes the focus of a …Read More

Recently I was asked to comment on the question: Who is or should be responsible for Strategic Planning? Several people responded. Here is my response:
Of course I agree that the CEO is the ultimate decider of the final strategic plan. Strategy is the CEOs primary job and also one of the key areas of attention for the Board. While I agree with the philosophy of the other respondents, I don’t believe the responses take the issue of “who” to a deep enough level.

I respectfully suggest that the CEO get input from many fronts. Unfortunately, too often, the CEO’s executives are telling him/her just what they think the CEO wants to hear …Read More

You are the CEO of a small company that has a retail product with patent rights. A very large department store chain sends one of your company’s products to China and begins buying a knock off from a Chinese manufacturer. When confronted by the company, the buyer tells you: “Your problem is with the Chinese manufacturer, not me, sue them”. How do you protect your rights, against customers or manufacturers who have very deep pockets, without losing all of their business and spending a huge sum of money? …Read More

To gain a competitive edge, every project needs to take a holistic approach to new channel development. Changes in one process or program will weave its way throughout an organization and its markets. When making changes to the marketing and sales channels, some work needs to be done early in the project to assess the implications of change. Failure to consider this may cause irreparable damage to the company’s sales, clients and reputation in the marketplace. In new channel development, the company knows current markets well and has setup programs and processes to support the existing channels. When a new channel is contemplated, there are many interrelated issues that must be dealt with. They include: …Read More

Over the last few years, cutbacks have significantly reduced the level of expertise in many areas. Most companies are using more and more temporary resources for their business needs in all areas of their business. This is more cost effective and provides a company the ability to strategically acquire special resources when needed. But, how do you effectively manage that process? You need to find a consulting company that has the ability to become your service provider across multiple disciplines and be with you through the entire project. All companies have outside CPA/audit firms, legal firms, insurance firms, etc. who have broad expertise in their functional disciplines. In manufacturing, operations and distribution, your company should also have …Read More

During a keynote address at IIR’s Balanced Scorecard Forum, Robert Kaplan, a leading international business management guru, revealed “that less than 10% of formulated strategies are executed effectively” and an international survey indicated that consistently executing strategic objectives were in the top three concerns of CEO’s and corporate boards. Kaplan also added “that it is a well know fact that organizations who have a formal strategy execution process dramatically outperform the rest”. Effectively and consistently implementing corporate strategy requires all stakeholders to be aligned to those objectives, understand their role in achieving them and be accountable for effective implementation. If your company doesn’t have a formal process, then the hard work is figuring out what one looks like. A strategic execution process must …Read More