Performance indicators

Tales of great strategies derailed by poor execution are all too common. That's because some organizations are designed to fail. For a company to achieve...

Performance is about more than just numbers.

Deep, lasting culture change requires an integrated approach that remodels a company’s social systems. The leadership team of Home Depot employed a remarkable set of tools to do that.

Are you as customer-centric as you think?

Over the past decade, more and more institutional investors have taken an interest in companies' records on environmental sustainability, social responsibility,...

It's all relative.

Regulators are trying to clear up the muddle created by earnings-report adjustments called "pro formas" that companies issue. Constraining such reporting,...

Some criticize boards for leaving the evolution of their composition to chance, allowing director retirements to dictate the pace of change. Support for annual director elections and for increased transparency around director nominations suggests that some shareholders would like to see more turnover. Is there evidence that companies and shareholders actually benefit when boards add […]

Lessons from the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack.

The performance measurement system in many decentralized companies actually works against good management. It encourages profit center managers to cover...

“Middle data” is an overlooked resource.

When service companies put employees and customers first, a radical shift occurs in the way they manage and measure success.

There are objectives within objectives, within objectives. They all require painstaking definition and close analysis if they are to be useful separately and profitable as a whole.

In my 34 years working in and around human resources, I’ve found that most HR departments are mired in power struggles, bureaucratic programs, and miscellaneous special projects when they should be focused on one objective: maximizing organizational performance. It’s tempting to blame this sorry state of affairs on HR alone. But the fundamental reason has […]

Changing how people see you is as important as changing how you act.

Most organizational strategies fail during implementation. It doesn't have to be this way-if you define the right strategy, get input on it from key stakeholders,...

Jefferson Pilot Financial (JPF), a life insurance and annuities firm, was looking for new ways to grow. Its top managers recognized that JPF needed to...

Historically, creating relevant messaging required a lot of leg work and research. New tools make it much easier.

Don’t let showmanship get in the way of productive conversations.

Traditional metrics don't capture many of the challenges and opportunities in store for U.S. companies and the national economy. The authors, from Deloitte,...