A client of mine asked me whether I had done my planning for the next year? I answered “Yes” and “No”.
Another asked, “how to get a fresh perspective for the year that lies ahead? How to avoid that January turns out to be more of the same?” read more »
keywords: annual plan, balanced scorecard, organisation, scenario conversationDuring three discussions recently it again struck me that the core of organisational renewal and growth is personal growth.
Where a client discusses issues, intellectually grasps what needs to be done, totally agrees and nods but does not go over into action, learning has not taken place. Nor will the organisation grow.
Where an owner is eager to learn and applies new learning, things start to happen within that organisation. read more »
keywords: balanced scorecard, intangibles, learning, organisationAll of my clients know that I enthuse about the simplicity of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Strategy Maps and the BSC itself, developed by Kaplan and Norton. Today, in a discussion with a client company’s knowledgeable director, I could again sense that the seemingly complexity of a BSC Strategy Map is so off-putting to some senior staff members working under pressure that the easy way out would be to say “we cannot set aside the time to develop and implement the map.”
Of course, people do not like complexity or change. But as I have observed in a previous post On being a (business) student, mastering a few simple planning principles is often only a case of putting aside a few hours. Compare this minute effort to the hours that go into obtaining a degree or the hours which goes into reading a Sunday newspaper (every Sunday). read more »
keywords: balanced scorecard, business planning, organisation, strategy mapsMost of my clients have a Balanced Scorecard. But even if it is perfectly completed with solid objectives, it is not worth much if you and I do not execute properly.
Kaplan and Norton conducted surveys in 1996 and again in 2006 about the state of strategy execution – as reported in their book The Execution Premium – Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage (2008).
Their most important finding: having a formal strategy execution system made success two to three times more likely than not having a system. read more »
keywords: balanced scorecard, organisation, planning and execution, strategy of executionA small independent community bank in Iowa, USA, has adopted the “Good to Great” framework developed by Jim Collins. They are struggling to build a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) that accommodates this framework.
“How could the Balanced Scorecard be aligned to Good to Great’s three components of Disciplined People, Disciplined Thought, and Disciplined Action?” Shane Tiernan, who leads strategic planning in this bank, visited my website. He e-mailed the question to me.
Fortunately, this alignment can be done fairly easily. The BSC framework can accommodate any theory. read more »
keywords: balanced scorecard, Good to Great, managing change, organisationI recently had the pleasure of listening to two partners, clients of mine, who prepared themselves intensely for our meeting. They had completed the reading of a recommended publication and could, with reference to every chapter, tell me what their findings were as applied to themselves. In addition, they took time out and together studied the various components of the balanced scorecard planning approach – a sophisticated approach which takes an effort to master. read more »
keywords: balanced scorecard, effective meetings, execution, organisation, strategic planning, talentMost people sense there is value in planning. They intuitively know that planning will lead to a greater definition of what they wish to achieve and to actions which will grow their businesses. A frequent question is: How to move from absolutely no formal planning to some form of planning? read more »
keywords: balanced scorecard, organisation, planning