Transforming organisations

Missing the bull’s eye

During the course of my executive coaching work I meet people that are struggling to deliver on their targets. This is inevitable for all of us at times and sometimes we are simply not going to make it, however hard we try.

A common goal is a percentage increase in market share at the expense of one or more of our competitors. As the financial year unfolds we cannot know how their strategy with customers is working or whether they have changed their business model or even whether the impact of the knowledge economy has resulted in a change in their circumstances.

So we may have to report bad news to the Board and there may little or nothing that we can do to change things in the immediate future.

The good news is that Return on Capital Employed is not dependent on merely increasing sales. There are a host of other factors that can be directly influenced by executive performance. We could acknowledge the figures and propose a strategy for improving the position whilst at the same time introducing other initiatives designed to augment organisational performance. Typically these include adding more value for customers, enhancing customer satisfaction scores, leveraging intellectual capital, reducing costs, finding new routes to market and so on.

Executives, irrespective of their core expertise, increasingly have to look at their work through the eyes of the chief executive – it’s the big picture that counts.

posted by Tim @ 11:55 AM