Summary

During a recent international speaking tour, I had the opportunity to chat with CEOs in a number of countries on issues impacting them, including: the business climate in their region, the opportunities they foresee, and the challenges on the horizon.

Summary

Yesterday my clock radio came to life at precisely at 6:15 a.m., just as I had instructed it the night before. Instead of an alarm - who wants to be jolted awake by a jarring buzz next to your head - I was awakened by what some would consider equally as jarring - the frenzied chatter of a morning radio team. As I was easing into consciousness the station's entertainment reporter listed the celebrity news of the previous weekend. At one point she mentioned that singer Hilary Duff became engaged to Canadian hockey player Mike Comrie, who popped the question while the two were vacationing in Hawaii. After some lighthearted banter on the topic the DJ asked whether Comrie was part of the Olympic team that was currently playing in Vancouver. His question struck me immediately. "Wasn't he listening?" I mumbled to myself. She said Comrie had proposed in Hawaii so it would be pretty tricky to plan a romantic escape with your girlfriend while simultaneously battling for a gold medal 2,700 miles away.

Summary

During Scorecard consulting engagements one of the greatest challenges I see my clients struggling with is their desire to find the ‘perfect' measure for every objective on their Strategy Map. Never satisfied with the results of extensive brainstorming and endless debate among their colleagues, many continue to strive for that one holy grail of a measure that will bring perfect clarity and insight to their pursuit of strategy execution. For some the level of frustration eventually reaches a boiling point, inevitably expressed with some form of the sentence, "You just can't measure what we do!" which of course is completely false.

Summary

Cost cutting and job reduction programs have always been popular in downturns, but they have taken on increased prominence during this most recent and extremely severe recession. Beyond the alarming number of jobs lost, what is most distressing for many people is that a significant number of those positions won’t return when conditions improve.

Summary

In many of the companies that have abolished traditional budgeting, the balanced scorecard has become a true cornerstone in the new management process, instead of a competitor to the traditional budget with the two often sending conflicting and confusing signals to bewildered managers. Leaving the budget in Statoil in 2005 resulted in a turbo-charging of our scorecard process, after having operated with budgets and scorecards in parallel since 1997. Now the organisation realised that we were serious about the scorecard, it was no longer just a new box on top of all the old ones.

Summary

"Peter Ferdinand Drucker, who left us in 2005, would have reached ten decades this year. Through his 39 books, countless articles, and literally thousands of speeches around the globe his legacy as the father of modern management thinking is well entrenched, and the penetrating questions he so humbly posed continue to challenge and inspire all of us working in the organizational world today. Covering the entire Drucker canon is well beyond the scope of a single article, so in these few pages I’d like to share with you some of my favorite Drucker questions and concepts, and challenge you to look deep within yourself and your organization in considering responses to queries I believe are as relevant today as they were when Peter tapped them out on his trusty Brother typewriter years ago."

Summary

No change initiative, regardless of the promise it holds, can succeed without the active support of senior executives. In this article, Paul explains the importance of executive sponsorship for your Balanced Scorecard implementation and outlines a number of proven principles for gaining active and ongoing support.

Summary

In this article, Paul illustrates why and how Balanced Scorecard as a management methodology assumes more significance in the light of the severe recession.  As a system that has proven remarkably in solving many a management challenge, BSC is versatile to come in handy in crisis situations as well.  With specific insights into dealing with the four balanced scorecard perspectives in difficult business conditions, Paul highlights how many of the standard indicators assume an elevated stature during a downturn.