Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Facing Corporate Reality - Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall!

Within a company, no great change can happen, no substantial performance increase can be achieved unless and until that company faces clearly and fearlessly what it really is.

Yet, the real drivers, causes, of corporate performance are mostly ignored. Partly because they are not known, partly because managers are afraid to look.

Less than 10% of the factors that drive the success of the company appear in traditional analyses. And these are often more result than cause, more ephemeral than enduring.

The other 90% of corporate drivers are not addressed. Most of these exist within the hidden emotional life of the company.

At some level, all successful leaders are aware of these drivers and cause them to change, to transform. For example, in successful turnaround situations, new CEOs intuitively change the entire dynamics of the company as part of the transformation. Inspired new CEOs do this too.

But neither desperation nor inspiration are needed. Companies can be transformed. And the first step is to identify the motive forces, the real drivers of success.

From hands-on experience with scores of organizations the writer describes some of the more important of these drivers and their effects on performance.

For access to the entire article, contact us at DianeN@ManagementConsultants.com with a subject line of Mirror Mirror!

If you needed to generate within a year a 20% improvement on the bottom line, which do you think would be more effective?

  • Changing strategy
  • Changing tactics
  • Changing processses (reengineering)
  • Changing the drivers of performance

Let us know what you think. Click "comments" just below on the right.