Why Performance-Directed Organizations Are More "Green"

While it’s great that renewable energy sources, energy-efficient transportation and green office complexes are being developed, the fact is that conservation can have more immediate impact. And, a performance-directed culture (and organization) promises to improve conservation by reducing the use of many forms of energy, thereby reducing an organization’s carbon footprint.

As a refresher, a performance-directed culture is one where everyone is actively aligned with the mission of the organization, where transparency and accountability are the norm, new insights are acted upon in unison and conflicts are resolved quickly and positively. A more complete description can be found in my new book: Profiles in performance – Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change.

The average organization thrives on long work days, numerous lengthy meetings, and an inordinate number of business trips to compensate for a chaotic lack of structure and context for the work that it does. Work-at-home is a luxury and is limited because the formal office setting provides the context needed to get work done. In these organizations, their lack of structure requires the co-location of people to manage interactions and cope with impromptu changes in management direction. Additionally, since a more rational context for work does not exist, management needs the physical workplace to ensure that their employees are truly “working”. Of course most of us that have worked outside of an office for many years know that productivity is vastly higher than when sitting at a desk in an office park.

In contrast, a performance-directed organization's initiatives can be carried out with relative ease – with each contributor understanding his or her role, related tasks and their relationship to others’. Both efficient and effective, it can bring initiatives to a more rapid and successful conclusion – which translates into less office time and fewer meetings and business trips. In turn, this reduces the need for extended-hours lighting and heating for office buildings and less business travel (e.g., trains, planes and automobiles).

Not surprisingly, a performance-directed organization facilitates and functions well with a work-at-home workforce better than one that is not performance-directed. Through work-at-home we can dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels and associated pollution from automobiles used to commute to and from office parks, and further reduce the energy used to heat and light office space. In the longer term, fewer buildings would be required to be built – thereby preserving open land, reducing the use of raw materials and the energy required for construction.

So, in these times when we’re all striving to find ways to be more “green” and reduce our carbon footprint, becoming performance-directed is a vital approach. And, while you’re reducing your carbon footprint, you’ll also be improving your organization’s performance.

Of course, that's just my opinion. What do you think?

Best,

Howard

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Jan/Feb Edition of Balance Scorecard Report

Attached is a link to an excerpt of the lead article that I authored for the latest Balanced Scorecard Report.

In this article I describe my Performance Culture Maturity Model (patent pending) which is the foundation for my new book, Profiles in Performance - Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change.

The article is available, in its entirety, from Harvard Business Publishing.

Best,

Howard

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A thought (or two) for the New Year

Welcome and Happy New Year! I hope it’s a healthy, happy and prosperous one for us all.Like many other industry-resource-types, I would normally use the occasion to issue some predictions for the New Year. However, for now, I’ve decided to hang up my “crystal ball” and resist making any predictions. Instead, I’ve chosen to talk about what I think we ought to aspire to.

So, to start, I would like to posit a question: why do we (still) struggle to effectively use information to make better decisions and what can we do to improve?

Here are five ideas that might help:

1) Get the culture right: If a culture is not receptive to BI and EPM, those efforts will have limited impact. This is the basis for my latest book, Profiles in performance – Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change. In it I assert that organizations need to establish a “performance-directed culture” first – as a context or rationale for these solutions. To this end, I developed the Performance Culture Maturity Model (Patent Pending) and related methodologies for assessing an organization’s culture and offering a path to becoming more “performance-directed”.

2) Don’t get overly enamored with technology: This is not to say that technology isn’t important. You certainly will want to have appropriate technology once you have the right environment in place to use it. However, it’s a means to an end, not an end in itself and large sums of money can be wasted with a “technology-led” strategy.

3) Get strategic: There was a time when many/most organizations had “strategic planning” functions. They were chartered to think and plan for the future – developing multiple scenarios and associated action plans. Today, few organizations have this sort of a function and it shows. Most organizations have allowed themselves to become overwhelmingly tactical and reactive in nature. Moving forward we need to become better at thinking about the future. Granted, this is a very imperfect process. However, thinking about the future and those forces that may affect us allows us to better prepare - considering multiple possible realities and developing/understanding potential options. This is far better alternative to allowing ourselves to be caught off guard – and forced (once again) to respond tactically.

4) Get the metrics right: Assuming we have a well defined and communicated mission and strategy, we can use metrics as a means of measuring and managing execution. This is where things get complex and there’s a real risk of providing large quantities of information with little impact. Here’s where “less is more”. Metrics need to be focused upon alignment with the strategy in a way that they’re actionable. By way of an example, I refer to Mueller - one of the excellent case studies in my book. A manufacturer of sheet metal buildings and products in West Texas, Mueller is an inductee of the Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame. Having successfully rolled out scorecards throughout the organization with very positive impact, Mueller initially struggled to find metrics for Manufacturing, which would be readily understood, actionable and would allow them to align with the strategy in a meaningful way. After a great deal of reflection, Mueller focused Manufacturing upon the reduction of scrap metal. This was a brilliant move which was quickly embraced and immediately paid dividends in the form of substantial cost savings. It also bolstered morale through a strong sense of strategic inclusion.

5) Take action: Many of us either engage in “analysis paralysis” or rely upon intuition when faced with a critical decision. Instead, we should view Business Intelligence and associated analyses as part of a learning process – which uses information to inform our decision-making, but doesn’t make the decision for us. This requires taking calculated risks, since information will typically be incomplete. However, the former two scenarios expose the organization to completely unknown risks. So, frame the decision to be made. Collect and analyze enough information/facts to build workable assumptions. Assess the benefits, risks, and alternatives and make your decision. Finally, monitor the impact and adjust if possible and as needed.

As always, I look forward to your comments!

All the best,

Howard

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Of Airplanes and Office Floors: Why BI is a Means to an End

There continues to be a great deal of discussion surrounding BI technology – which tools are better – the merits of search, predictive analytics, advanced visualization, etc. However, I think many have lost sight of why we use BI tools and technologies. They are not the end but the means to developing deeper insight and understanding.

Additionally, the analysis of data, however valuable, serves as a “rear-view mirror”. It tells us what has happened and is limited in its ability to predict the future. I am reminded of the book, The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In it he talks about the “highly improbable” - the unpredictability of improbable events - and how historical data simply cannot help us fully anticipate them.

In my first book, The Performance Management Revolution, I used an aviation analogy to describe BI and EPM. I talked about all of the instrumentation that pilots use to measure a flight’s progress. However, with all of the great instrumentation at the disposal of pilots, it’s always a good idea to occasionally look at the window. And, even when flying in the clouds and in IFR (instrument flying rules) conditions, the point of the instrumentation and associated flight planning is to get you to where you once again have visual references in order to land.

BI is no different. We ought to use BI to learn as much as we can, and develop models and assumptions about the real world. However, we should not consider that the end. It is merely a beginning – a means to expand our discovery – a foundation for learning and the development of even greater perspective. Like the aviation analogy, our analysis of data provides the instrumentation to find needed “land” references, and a context for further exploration, learning and a more complete understanding.

By way of example, when I was researching my new book, Profiles in Performance: Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change, I spent a significant amount of time on the phone, with case study candidates, trying to assess whether they’d be worthy subjects for the book. However, even with all of this pre-work, once I arrived onsite and began to develop relationships and interview people face-to-face, it became clear that things “on the ground” were different than my assumptions. Had I relied solely on data collection (surveys) and telephone interviews, I believe my perspective and that of the book would have been much less well informed – rendering the book far less useful.

So, how much do we really know? How good is our perspective? To help answer this, let me share a couple of stories from my own experience:

A CEO at a company that I once worked for used to regale everyone with the same tired old story of a customer CEO that explained how valuable we were to his organization. In truth, our CEO didn’t spend enough time with customers. And when he did, he avoided asking difficult questions and shunned criticism. And, although he wanted to be perceived as customer-oriented, he relied on “experience” and “gut instinct” to run the company. Hence, he used this recurring customer anecdote because he simply didn’t have any others. He was sorely lacking in real perspective.

In stark contrast, many years ago, at another company, I recall meeting with a long-time customer that recounted the early days when our founders (whom I held in high regard) used to sleep on his office floor during the round-the-clock development of their software solution. At the time I was embarrassed for them. How could this customer demean my leadership with such a story? But, in retrospect, I now realize that, as a result, they had an intimate working knowledge of their customer’s business and were able to develop a great solution. I now view this as quite an accomplishment, and the key to their success back then.

Sadly, most organizations will find that they have more in common with the first story than the second.

So, BI is valuable – but as a starting point, not as an end in itself. Use it to develop a model and document your assumptions. But then go and test that model in the real world – prove or disprove your assumptions. Through that process you’ll develop real and defensible perspective.

Finally, instrumentation (BI) is great, but it’s critical to take a look out the “window” for those important “land references”. And, once you're "on the ground" – in order to get real perspective - you might want to consider sleeping on your customer’s floor.

As always, I would love to hear your comments - and your own stories!

Best,

Howard

September Update

Greetings everyone! It’s fall in the Northern Hemisphere and we’re back hard at work at Dresner Advisory Services!

Compared to Q2 and Q3 things have picked up rather nicely and enterprises seem to be investing again. Although I only have anecdotal evidence that this is the case, other colleagues have confirmed that an improvement in economic conditions seems to be unfolding. In addition, recently the OECD announced that “forecasts show a third-quarter return to expansion of economic output, as measured by gross domestic product, in the United States and the 16-country euro zone”. This has also been echoed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who said today that the U.S. economy appeared to be “picking up steam”. Of course, as we progress through Q4, it should become readily apparent whether things are truly improving. However, I’m feeling more optimistic than I have since 2007.

Speaking of Q4, there are some exciting developments that I want to share with you.

The New Book:

As most of you already know, my second book, Profiles in Performance – Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change will be released next month by John Wiley & Sons. The process has gone quite smoothly and it’s actually arriving a month earlier than originally planned and can be ordered online from John Wiley & Sons, Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

As you may recall, the book focuses upon what I call “performance-directed culture”, a prerequisite for any successful BI or EPM program. The timing is ideal as organizations begin to plan for 2010 and develop new strategies to help leverage the next era of growth. In the process of writing the book, I developed a new maturity model, called the Performance Culture Maturity Model ^TM. This model (which is patent pending), and associated methods, will help organizations assess their current readiness for BI or EPM and identify steps that can be taken to better ensure success.

One of the findings from my upcoming book is that many organizations remain "departmentally optimized", without much cooperation or collaboration between functions. In fact, oftentimes a spirit of internal competition exists with departments blaming each other for the enterprise's failure to perform. How you would rank your organization? Feel free to drop me a line and let me know.

And, I am currently in discussions with several organizations to “certify” them to deliver cultural assessment services using my model. More on that topic in the coming months…

Media Exposure:

In the past week, I have participated in some interviews, podcasts and webinars. These interviews center upon my upcoming book and related topics of interest. I encourage you to take a look:

September 21, 2009 – Interview with Doug Henschen at Intelligent Enterprise regarding my upcoming book.

September 21, 2009 – Interview by Dana Gardner (Briefingsdirect.com) on the subject of web data services and business intelligence (podcast and transcript).

September 17, 2009 – Podcast interview on searchdatamanagement.com covering my new book and performance-directed culture.

Upcoming Activities and Events:

Over the next several months, I will be supporting a number of industry events, where I will be unveiling several new presentations, based upon the new book. Although there are a number of new activities that are in the works, here are several that I can announce today:

CIO Magazine’s The Year Ahead Conference – November 8-10, 2009 – Indian Wells, CA:

At this important event targeting CIOs, I will be joined by my colleague Tom Wadsworth of Cleveland Clinic, one of the premier case study subjects from my new book. Together we’ll deliver a keynote presentation entitled: Culture as Culprit: The Real Story Behind Business Intelligence Project Failures.

The Palladium Group’s Americas Summit – November 11-12, 2009 – San Francisco, CA:

At this strategic event for business leaders, led by luminaries Drs. Kaplan and Norton, I will present a keynote entitled: Culture - The Missing Link in Performance Management.

Those using the discount code "DRESNER" will receive a $600 discount on standard Summit registration rates.

Other events:

DM Radio – September 24, 2009 – Topic: Making the Most of Performance Management

I will be a guest panelist on this live web-based event, and will discuss some of the key points and lessons learned from my upcoming book.

Webinar on SaaS BI: Targeted Business Analytics: How Large Companies Leverage SaaS BI (Sponsored by OCO) – recorded on September 9, 2009.

In this recorded webinar, I discussed the future of business, the importance of business intelligence and the role of SaaS BI.

As always, I hope you’ll reach out and share your views on the industry, your company, the new book or anything else that’s happening.

Please let me know if you’ll be attending one of the events above. It would be great to see you there!

All the best,

Howard

P.S. Please check out my website for the latest news and updates for Dresner Advisory Services.

A comment or two on acquisitions

Given the latest news about acquisitions in the BI space, I feel I need to make a few comments. No doubt this will be viewed as provocative. That's not my intent. This is just my honest opinion about the subject.

Acquisitions don't typically add value or benefit customers. The real beneficiaries are shareholders and executive management. Wall Street likes acquisitions. Investors and investment banking-types make tons of money.

Me, I like money too. However, I would prefer that people/companies make money by adding value. By adding value I mean inventing something new, building great companies that make great products and support their customers - and not looking for a quick and lucrative "exit". I mean adding competition to the market - not reducing or eliminating it.

Sadly, when acquisitions occur, value is often lost. Products are discontinued (or simply "supported"), key employees are RIFed, and customers lose their voice and the influence that they once had. New product features? Get in line (a long one). Your own user group conference? Not any more. You can have a breakout session in our mega conference.

There are still a few independent vendors out there. But for how long? When a larger vendor offers 5 - 6 times trailing revenues in cash, it's hard to say no. Perhaps the remaining independent vendors could make a pledge to stay independent? Okay, that's probably a bit naïve on my part.

The larger question in my mind is: how do organizations re-take control of their own destiny? While not necessarily an advocate for things like open source, I do wonder if it wouldn't provide some protection against the ongoing M&A frenzy in the market.

I would like to know what you think. Post a response!

Best,

Howard


My new book: Profiles in Performance: Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change is now available for pre-order

Please check out my website for the latest news and updates for Dresner Advisory Services.

It's all about culture - a glimpse into my new book

Greetings everyone! It's nearly summer here in the northern hemisphere and time to start thinking about the beach, hiking, picnics and barbecues. And, now that I've finished writing my second book, I'm hoping to kick back and relax a little and enjoy the warm weather!

My new book will be entitled: Profiles in Performance: Business Intelligence Journeys and the Roadmap for Change and will be released by John Wiley & Sons in October. It's available now for pre-order.

I started thinking about writing a second book awhile ago. Originally, I had conceived it as a best-practices guide for Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) - a sort of sequel to my first book, The Performance Management Revolution. However, as I began my research, I came to realize that “culture”, and not technology, was the deciding factor for success or failure. By culture I mean people and groups of people - their beliefs, motives, attitudes, organization, customs, processes, etc.

As a result, I changed the focus to what I call "performance-directed culture" (e.g., transparency and accountability) and a small number of organizations that seemed successful in creating and sustaining one. To this end, I developed a new maturity model, which I call the Performance Culture Maturity Model. This model employs six dimensions and four levels - which help determine the state of an organization’s achievement towards a performance-directed culture. I used this model as a filter to select candidate organizations and as a lens to study them.

Once the model was created, I began the process of speaking with innumerable organizations of varying size and industry. Out of all of this process came four extraordinary subjects: one each in health care, hospitality, manufacturing and public broadcasting. The names of these organizations and the personnel that participated are openly shared in the book.

The four finalists all agreed to an on-site study, for several days, with access to all key personnel. This entailed a “360 degree review” with in-depth interviews of C-level executives, other management, and individual contributors – across all functions. This approach gave me an opportunity to develop a relationship with the people and a deeper understanding of their businesses and cultures than would have been possible had I employed a more traditional method.

The result is a rich account of each organization’s journey towards the goal of becoming a performance-directed culture. Each case study and analysis is unique, detailing the challenges, achievements and – most importantly - lessons learned.

My goal for the reader is enable them to find themselves in one of these case studies, map their own progress on the maturity model and initiate (or reinvigorate) a program for performance-directed culture.

Between now and the end of the year, you'll be hearing a lot more about the book - including related interviews, presentations and book signings. Check my website for updates at http://www.howarddresner.com.

HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!

All the best,

Howard