In the February issue of Harvard Business Review is a feature article on how managers either create or destroy company strategies via their daily decisions.
An excerpt:
“Our favorite story about how strategy really gets made comes from a visit one of us—the lead author—made to a large company’s headquarters. The company controller was concerned and confused about a capital project proposal he’d recently received from one of the company’s most important divisions: a request for a large chimney. Just a chimney. Curious, the controller flew out to visit the division and discovered that division managers had built a whole plant (minus the chimney) using work orders that did not require corporate approval. The chimney was the only portion of the plant that could not be broken down into small enough chunks to escape corporate scrutiny.”
With six sigma, balanced scorecards, action learning, coaching, cascading performance objectives - how could this happen?
The authors offer six recommendations on how to avoid these perils. What do you think allows for what appears to be the “tail wagging the dog” - managers derailing or championing corporate strategy at their whim?

Joe Raasch :: Feb.01.2007 ::
Leadership ::
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