Have you sometimes been told that you need to be more productive? You need to work harder? You need to be more efficient?

Most people, when they hear these words, think that they need to speed up their work. “The management thinks we are too slow.”

I have now worked 16 years with software systems for Strategy Management/Performance Management. In my earlier days I worked as a practitioner, but in the last 11 years my role has been that of a CEO of a software company developing Strategy Management solution.

Many companies are using their performance management system to control and punish people/ divisions which do not meet their set targets.

Many times in the past years, I have been asked the question - "What is the derivable value from successfully executing strategy?" We know there is potentially a huge value from successfully implementing strategy, but only recently I came across research data that quantifies this value.

I have seen how many companies start with ‘data’ as their Holy Grail. “What is the data we have that can give us information?”  This is an important question but not the most important question you can raise

I have visited several companies in the past and many of them have asked me about how to make their performance management system one that reflects strategy. They all wanted to go from a KPI / operational focus, to a more strategic focus and asked for help. My advice was to not even think about what they had in their current Performance Management system. Even if they had good data that was hard to collect, they must just leave it all for a while when structuring a Strategic Balanced Scorecard. This process of “emptying your brain of your beloved KPI’s” is hard for many.

I don't know if you have tried to run on a treadmill. It can be quite scary. There are Youtube video's that demonstrate how not to do it. But that is not my point. Let's say you are asked to run a half marathon on the treadmill. 21 kilometers is a long distance you might say, and it is for me too. I am an old runner, and the way I managed to psyche myself to run those 21 kilometers was not by focusing on the remaining distance.

Research indicates that 60% of corporations don’t link resource allocation (budgets) to their Strategic Plan. I am wondering how companies manage to execute strategy when strategic planning and resource allocation processes are not linked. To me it looks like the company is on "auto pilot" and does not respond to new strategic directions very well.

I attended last year’s Global Leadership Summit. It was a great conference which gave me a lot of insights into management which can be practiced in my own company.

I don’t know how you set targets in your company. Are targets set by a manager without a closer reflection on how to reach them, or are they worked out in collaboration with the people who are to achieve them?