The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment

1. Translate the strategy to operational terms

2. Align the organization to the strategy

3. Make strategy everyone's job

4. Make strategy a continual process

5. Mobilize change through executive leadership

The first four principles focus on the the Balanced Scorecard tool, framework, and supporting resources; the importance of the fifth principle is self-evident. "With a Balanced Scorecard that tells the story of the strategy, we now have a reliable foundation for the design of a management system to create Strategy-Focused Organizations."

After two introductory chapters, the material is carefully organized and developed within five Parts, each of which examines in detail one of the aforementioned "common principles": Translating the Strategy to Operational Terms, Aligning the Organization to Create Synergies, Making Strategy Everyone's Job, Making Strategy a Continual Process, and finally, Mobilizing Change Through Executive Leadership. Kaplan and Norton then provide a "Frequently Asked Questions" section which some readers may wish to consult first.

There are many pitfalls to be avoided when designing, launching, and implementing the program which Kaplan and Norton present. These pitfalls include lack of senior management commitment, too few individuals involved [or including inappropriate individuals at the outset], keeping the scoreboard at the top, too long a development process (when, in fact, the Balanced Scorecard is a one-time measurement process), treating the Balanced Scorecard as an [isolated] systems project, hiring consultants lacking sufficient experience with a Balanced Scorecard, and introducing the Balanced Scorecard only for compensation. When organizations experience one or more of these pitfalls, their key executives can soon become impatient, confused, frustrated, and ultimately, opposed to Balanced Scorecard initiatives. It is imperative to understand both what the Balanced Scorecard must be (e.g. cohesive and comprehensive) and what it must not be (e.g. fragmented and episodic). Kaplan and Norton correctly note that the journey they propose "is not easy or short. It requires commitment and perseverance. It requires teamwork and integration across traditional organizational boundaries and roles. The message must be reinforced often and in many ways." Those who are determined to achieve organization-wide breakthrough performance are fortunate to have Kaplan and Norton as companions every step of the way during what is indeed a perilous "journey."


More Harvard drivel   July 5, 2001
28 out of 50 found this review helpful

Well, our state government paid these fellahs and their associates several hundred thousand dollars to provide a framework and consultation to implement their East German, management-by-directive style of strategic planning.

After spending more than a year at it, at all levels of government from top to bottom, the Balanced Scorecard was dropped like a hot potato. It is virtually incomprehensible to staff, encourages the worst kind of navel gazing, and moves government away from its core mission of protecting and promoting public health and safety to hundreds of possible sub-measures of dubious value. Thousands of staff hours, at the public's expense, were expended trying to make sense of an approach that even the paid consultants couldn't explain in terms the average legislator could understand.

This is REALLY BAD STUFF.


if you only have a hammer, you see every problem as a nail   June 11, 2001
Patrick Merlevede (Lembeke, Vlaanderen (Belgium, Europe))
26 out of 29 found this review helpful

The title from the review is borrowed from Maslow. Its choice is inspired by the fact that the authors try to promote the balanced scorecard as THE solution to *any* problem a company has. I agree on the value of Balanced Scorecards as a measurement tool. I also acknowledge the fact that what you measure will strongly influence the path your organization will follow. (One of the discoveries of sytems thinking is that the fact of measuring something changes the system.) However, there is MORE to strategy and to human motivation than just making measurable goals. As the authors note, an important question for strategy is whether it gets implemented, but measurement or scorecards aren't key in that. For stragegy, one needs to energize the whole company-system, so you have to combine scorecards with principles as the one you'll find in books as "Appreciative Inquiry" or "Whole-Scale Change". Likewise, for human motivation you have to make sure you get the right person on the right place (as we show at jobEQ.com) and as you can read in my book "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence". Indeed, my experience has learned me that when Balanced scorecards fail, the reason has to do with the factors that these other books will mention. My rating for this book is the result of the observation that Kaplan and Norton "overstrech" the usability and impact their useful technology has.