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One Source of the Truth

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StrategyDriven Organizational Performance Measure Best PracticeMeasurement of observable variables has always been as much an art as it is a science. How, when, where, and with what we measure observables highly influences the values derived.

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Resource Management Best Practice 1 – Attract the Best with Accountability

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StrategyDriven Resource Management ArticleIn today’s competitive environment, it is no longer good enough to offer employees a good place to work. Rather, it is imperative a company creates a work environment where the best want to work. Only when such an environment exists will a company attract and retain the most knowledgeable, skilled, and accomplished employees; who in-turn will effectively execute its activities and make it a viable competitor in an increasingly aggressive marketplace.

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Additional Resources

StrategyDriven contributors recommend the following resource that elaborate or compliment the Attract the Best with Accountability best practice:

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
by Jim Collins

About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Recommended Resource – Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars

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Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors
by Patrick M. Lencioni

About the Reference

Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors by Patrick M. Lencioni examines the organizational barriers that prevent the free flow of information and resources thereby degrading overall corporate performance. Focused on the relationships and inner workings of the executive team, Mr. Lencioni provides a process for breaking down these barriers and enhancing organizational focus on mission objectives.

Benefits of Using this Reference

StrategyDriven contributors like Silos, Politics and Turf Wars because it provides insights to the common causes of organizational barriers and an actionable process for overcoming them. While the process presented focuses on realizing annual and near-term objectives, we believe it can be naturally extended to more strategic goals. Additionally, Mr. Lencioni’s process supports what StrategyDriven contributors believe is key to sustained, superior success; vision, focus, and commitment.

As a business novel, Silos, Politics and Turf Wars presents its principles of for improved effectiveness through a series of believable, vividly illustrated, and easily related to stories of four organizations evolving toward improved performance. Additionally, many of the best practice recommendations found on the StrategyDriven website relate to Silos, Politics and Turf Wars; making it a StrategyDriven recommended read.

Strategic Planning Best Practice 6 – Focus on Strength

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Time and again, organizations – like people – focus on overcoming weaknesses to improve performance. But like people, far more can often be gained by advancing the company’s strengths. Strength in this sense is not simply a corporate competency; rather, it is something the organization can consistently perform at world class levels.

Organizations focusing on their strengths realize several strategic advantages over their competitors. A focus on activities of strength implies reduced managerial attention and resource application to weaknesses; freeing these to further advance the company’s strengths. Workers feel a greater sense of accomplishment with the company’s increased success; improving employee engagement which often leads to an improved public image, both of which build on the strengths.

Focusing on strengths does not imply a lack of awareness or activities to eliminate weaknesses. In fact, it is important that weaknesses be reduced to a level that appropriately manages the risk of exploitation by competitors and minimizes their interference and distraction to the achievement of strength activities.

Additional Resources

StrategyDriven contributors recommend several resources that elaborate or compliment the Focus on Strength best practice including:

Organizational Strength

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t
by Jim Collins

Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great
by Jim Collins

Jack: Straight from the Gut
by Jack Welch

Individual Strength

The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
by Peter F. Drucker

Now, Discover Your Strengths
by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton

StrategyDriven Resource Management Forum

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“Vision without resources is a hallucination.”
Old Pentagon Quote

Organizations are complex creatures comprised of personnel with varying personalities, talents, needs, and aspirations. Increasing this complexity is the wide array of organizational possessions: tools and materials, physical and intellectual properties, and financial instruments. Ordering this complex collection of resources to ensure the efficient, highly engaged use of all of the organization’s assets is the function of the resource management program.

Processes associated with an organization’s resource management program vary between the strategic and the tactical. Within the realm of strategic planning, resource management encompasses the processes and activities of performing annualized projections and monthly/weekly capacity planning. Extended into the tactical arena of business execution, resource management involves scheduling; acquisition; retention; maintenance and development; and termination, retirement, and release/disposal of assets.

Resource management, whether strategic or tactical, focuses on personnel, material, land, intellectual property and financial instruments. In strategic planning, resource management processes group assets into large categories based on common characteristics. As processes narrow their focus from long-range to tactical resource planning, asset focus becomes more specific; even to the point of uniquely identifying the asset to be involved in an activity.

Focus of the Resource Management Forum

Materials in this forum are dedicated to discussing the leading practices of companies successfully executing a resource management program in support of strategic planning and tactical business execution. The following articles, podcasts, documents, and resources cover those topics foundational to a strong resource management program.

Articles

Principles

Best Practices

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