Scenarios for all
McKinsey’s Charles Roxburgh offers nicely practical advice on the use and abuse of scenarios. In the process he points out that the latest crisis many firms find themselves in, like previous ones, was foreseeable and even preventable if management had done this work professionally. And remember scenarios are not just useful for the big firms – any competent management team should be asking itself what range of things could happen, both to exploit incipient opportunities and anticipate new challenges.
More items on strategy in the crisis
Amongst the continuing stream of articles on this, some good ones [I've left out some bad or downright dangerous ones] include: Read more
The balanced scorecard
A large Management Development community I track has been discussing how we could have prepared people better for the current troubles, and some have advocated the Balanced Scorecard [BSC]. I have used BSC in strategy teaching for some years, and come across BSCs in many companies. My impression is that, whilst it is a valuable extension to standard financial reporting systems, it has some limitations as a tool for managing strategy – limitations that the down-turn has exposed quite sharply.
The crisis – ethics or competence?
See http://www.strategydynamics.com/strategy-lessons. Background follows … Read more
Good & bad downturn advice
I have commented on some of the consultants’ and journals’ advice in earlier posts, so thought I would share what some senior execs think who I’ve been asking in recent events. Here’s just a few … Read more