Saturday, October 31, 2009

The Foundations of Recovery III

When insightful managers look at the causes of performance they are immediately struck with the overwhelming influence that just a few critical functions have to determine the success or failure of the company.

As long as they as a whole are positive, the company is improving. But when they turn negative the corporate trajectory is downward and, if they stay that way, the organization is destroyed - utterly and inevitably.

Every experienced manager knows these functions exist. Yet for most they remain invisible, mysterious; business schools never teach how to measure them, how to grapple with them, how to transform them. They remain something mystical that they are expected to know intuitively how to control. It is why more than 50% of all new executives are gone in eighteen months - even in good times.

Professional managers have at their fingertips all the numbers that deal with the past, like the financials or the KPI's. Yet, about the causes of performance, which are laying down the future, they must GUESS.

Since 1980 the root causes of performance have been known precisely and documented in great detail. Since 1985 the technology to trigger changes in them has existed and has been used in more than 200 organizations.

Our book Fire in the Corporate Belly, now in its second, expanded edition, describes the causes, how to measure them and how to change them.

Papers, by us and about us, have appeared in more than 40 business publications around the world, from American Banker to Fast Company. A current article can be found here. Two other articles on this subject will appear in Corporate Finance Review and Strategic Finance in October. If you would like to receive previews, please Contact us.

One of the drivers of performance, obscure, but of extraordinary importance, is Acknowledgement of Work - generator number two.