We’re Down Here!

From the top desk to the desk top. In many organizations there can be a wide divide between the executives in their large corner offices and the managers and employees. The separation I am referring to is between the strategy formulated by the executive team and the employees tasked to implement it. It is rare that there is a good connection between the two.

As evidence, at the 2009 annual conference of the balanced scorecard organization, the Palladium Group, lead by Dr. David P. Norton and Dr. Robert S. Kaplan, in Dr. Norton’s keynote presentation he stated that seven out of ten organizations fail to successfully execute their strategy designed by its executives. What explains this? Advocates of strategy map and balanced scorecard methods believe it is in large part because most managers and employees do not adequately know what their organization’s strategy is. For example, if I randomly interviewed 15 of your organization’s employees in a hallway and asked, “Quick. Explain your executive team’s strategy?” how many of your employees could describe it well? Maybe none. What’s the consequence? If employees and managers do not understand the executive team’s strategy, then how do we expect them to understand what they do each week and month contributes to achieving that strategy?

The sad part is that workers are much more capable than I believe executive teams give them credit. If managers and employees were provided business analytics tools they could investigate and explore problems to gain insights and make better decisions. They can get more from their enterprise performance management solutions. “We’re down here” is a silent cry from employees.

What does this mean?

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