Delivering Results: Managing What Matters

For any organization to perform and compete successfully, it must have the systems and processes in place to translate goals into achievable actions—and to measure and monitor results. Moreover, the organization must be able to adjust and adapt as market conditions, technologies, the competitive environment, government regulations, personnel, and other variables evolve, sometimes gradually and sometimes dramatically. In Delivering Results: Measuring What Matters, Babson College professors and management consultants, Lawrence Carr and Alfred Nanni, show managers how to avoid the common pitfalls and mistakes when setting corporate strategy, and instead create a management system—unique to their organization—that aligns internal resources with objectives, motivates and rewards employees, and continuously provides feedback.Delivering results is not merely measuring and reporting; it is the amalgamation of all the decisions made and all the actions taken by the organization’s people. Thus a management system is more about human judgment than quantitative analysis. Illustrating their concepts with numerous real-life examples (both successes and failures), practical tools and models, and a glossary of key terms, the authors acknowledge that designing and implementing an effective management system can be daunting for many reasons, including: Different strategies call for different competencies Specific competitive environments may reorder the priorities of these competencies Leadership styles influence behavior Information technology can enhance or limit the flow of necessary data Skills and knowledge change over time No two people are exactly the same Arguing that there is no silver bullet or one-size-fits-all approach to strategy execution, the authors demonstrate that managers who can navigate these variables and chart a route for their own organization’s strategy will reach their goals faster and more efficiently than their competitors. Ultimately, knowing how to create and direct management systems that deliver results is, in itself, a strategic resource.