Go to school on balanced scorecard.

I see you can go to Harvard Business School and learn about ‘Driving Corporate Performance – Aligning Scorecards, Systems, and Strategy’ [July 13 - 18, 2008]. I come across balanced scorecards in most organizations these days, and of course it’s a good idea to look at the stuff inside the business that actually drives results, rather than just those results themselves. Unfortunately, unless guided by real experts [and sometimes even then], scorecards often feature the same problems that afflict strategy generally – abstract and ambiguous terminology, no rigorous causal relationships between the factors on the scorecard, either amongst themselves or with the performance indicators, and some total blind-spots, like nothing at all about competitors or the market. The BSC is a great idea, but these problems need fixing, and the existing explanations about BSC don’t do the job.

A bunch of interesting items from McK Q

We keep being told that investors value growth in future earnings over short term profits [yes, early], so an article on Corporate Health in an Earnings-Driven Environment is welcome and helpful. It considers the kind of initiatives a company can undertake to balance short- and long-term well-being alike. 

It seems that executives worry about global trends [political, economic, social and technological] but mostly don’t act on them because of more important immediate issues, limited resources and skills, or no idea what to do about them. Pity – it’s a rather basic strategic competence for large corporations.

McK Q argues that the value at stake from the business discontinuities threatened by climate change is huge, and that winners will reposition themselves to take advantage of a low-carbon future – no surprise there then!  They go on to argue that businesses must act on global warming and other issues to narrow a general trust gap between them and the public. A small problem here is that consumer concern on climate change is low, and few think business has anything much to do with it. They’re wrong of course, but that doesn’t make it easier to justify spending wads of cash with no obvious business case. What the article fails to address is the opportunity to lead, rather than follow, public opinion – a skill that strong companies in many sectors really know how to do.

Mea Culpa !! Overloaded

I’ve got so much on for the foreseeable future with responding to interest in the book that sounding off about strategy issues generally has fallen off my radar-screen just now. But if you want to start a discussion on things, take a look at the forum – www.strategydynamics.com/forum .