Changing the nature of board engagement. “Ask me for anything,” Napoleon Bonaparte once remarked, “but time.”
Board members today also don’t have that luxury. Directors remain under pressure from activist investors and other constituents, regulation is becoming more demanding, and businesses are growing more complex. McKinsey research suggests that the most effective directors are meeting these challenges by spending twice as many days a year on board activities as other directors do. As directors and management teams adapt, they’re bumping into limits—both on the amount of time directors can be asked to spend before the role is no longer attractive and on the scope of the activities they can undertake before creating organizational noise or concerns among top executives about micromanagement.
We recently discussed some of these tensions with board members and executives at Prium, a New York–based forum for CEOs. Exhibit Boosting the effectiveness of boards isn’t just about spending more time. Enlarge Engaging between meetings. Business Model Canvases. Is Your Company Misaligned? These 5 Steps Will Get You on the Same Page. Riaz Khadem Add up all the time wasted doing things that aren’t important in your organization—by you, your direct reports and those reporting to you indirectly.
You’ll probably end up with a large number. That number represents your organization’s misalignment. We once facilitated an executive session with a large company that included three levels of managers. A manager and her direct report volunteered for an exercise you may wish to try in your company. We had the manager write down the top five ‘right things’ the direct report should do to excel in his job.
Was there a difference between the two lists? Were both individuals aligned with vision and strategy, there would be no gap. In an organization, doing the right things means doing activities that will directly advance its vision and strategy. 1. Look at your organization’s mission and vision. Examine your company’s strategy. 2. Do you know how you contribute to strategy execution in your company on a day-to-day basis? 3. Limitations of the BCG matrix – The BCG Matrix. Although the BCG matrix is widely used and widely discussed in many strategy and marketing textbooks, it does carry significant practical limitations.
One of the more obvious benefits of the BCG matrix is its level of simplicity – in that it only has two dimensions and four quadrants – and its easy ability to recall the four quadrants due to their descriptive names (for example, cash cows and dogs). However, there are numerous limitations and concerns with using the BCG matrix, as will be discussed below.
The first concerned with the BCG matrix actually stems from its biggest advantage, which is its overall simplicity.It uses two surrogate measures for its dimensions – namely relative market share (a measure of competitive strength) and market growth rate (a measure of market attractiveness) – these two measures are too simplistic and narrow for the purpose of what they trying to measure and identify. A third limitation or concern area for the BCG matrix is the definition of the market. Mastering three strategies of organic growth. Organic growth is key to companies’ futures.
According to survey results, the best firms follow more than one path to achieve it and also are better at developing the right capabilities to support it. There’s no single formula for delivering organic growth. In fact, the results from a new McKinsey Global Survey on the topic suggest that the companies that see the most growth follow diverse paths.
That insight has significant implications for a company’s health and performance. Organic growth could not be more important to companies’ survival. We wanted to understand better how businesses consider and pursue growth along three strategies: investing in existing high-growth activities by reallocating funds from a variety of sources; creating new products, services, or business models; and performing better by constantly optimizing their core commercial capabilities, such as sales, pricing, and marketing. A diversified approach to organic growth Identifying top-growth companies Looking ahead. Bersin by Deloitte: Research and Advisory Services in Enterprise Learning & Talent Management. Epicenter. Management Flight Simulations. Role-playing games provide real-world lessons MIT Sloan has long been a pioneer among business schools when it comes to action learning—creating real-world applications of classroom knowledge.
Management flight simulations are the latest such application. These innovative and interactive tools create a virtual world in which students explore and participate in the critical management issues facing a range of industries and organizations. Management flight simulations bring an experiential aspect to learning about complex systems. This type of action learning has more impact on students than simply listening to a lecture or engaging in a case study discussion. Each management simulation offers video user guides and online instructions for students.