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22 June 2009 • 7:11 am

Cascading Conundrums – Part III

By Tenacious Tortoise

In Parts I and II of this topic, I asserted that cascading a balanced scorecard (BSC) across an organization is a process that requires careful planning, and thoughtful answers to the ‘When’, ‘Why’, and ‘Where’ questions. I cautioned that hastily planned cascading can derail the entire change program. Here, we conclude with the final three questions a leadership team should consider before cascading strategy across the organization.
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19 June 2009 • 12:29 pm

Cascading Conundrums – Part II

By Tenacious Tortoise

In Part I of this topic, I asserted that cascading a balanced scorecard (BSC) across an organization is a process that requires careful planning, and thoughtful answers to the ‘When’ and ‘Why’ questions. I cautioned that hastily planned cascading can derail the entire change program. Here, we continue with the next question every leadership team should consider before cascading strategy across the organization.

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18 June 2009 • 12:24 pm

Cascading Conundrums – Part I

By Tenacious Tortoise

Cascading is a term that has been used in the balanced scorecard (BSC) community to describe the process of propagating the BSC across an organization. Although the term implies a downward movement (through the organization’s hierarchy), propagation in any direction has come to be referred to as ‘cascading.’ Some people mistakenly apply the term to the strategy communication process; after all, they reason, communication of strategy also cascades through the organization, and is certainly related to BSC propagation. But I believe that cascading and communication are two separate processes, especially since communication is absolutely essential to the change process, while cascading is not always necessary or beneficial. And poorly-planned cascading can derail the change program.

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17 June 2009 • 11:33 am

Talking about Strategy

By Tenacious Tortoise

An excellent predictor of the effectiveness of the change program in any organization is how that organization’s members talk about strategy. Leaders engaging in a change program tend to spend far more energy in developing their strategy than they do in ensuring that the message of strategy is effectively communicated throughout the organization. This isn’t surprising: talking about strategy doesn’t come naturally, but it is essential to the success of the change program.

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4 June 2009 • 1:37 pm

Planning Change Communication – Part II

By Tenacious Tortoise

In the previous post on the topic of planning communications for an organization’s change program, I outlined a sequence of five messages that are a key dimension of the planning framework. The five messages provide a basis for determining whatto say about change, independent of the determination of with whom the messages are to be shared. The audience dimension addresses this, and is the next part of the planning framework. 

Audience segmentation is the process of first defining the universe of stakeholders, and then dividing that universe into groups according to the intended approach to the communication of the messages. 

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1 June 2009 • 8:58 am

Planning Change Communication – Part I

By Tenacious Tortoise

Organizations planning a change program using Balanced Scorecard (BSC) quite logically focus their efforts on the mechanics of the BSC itself; identifying a leadership team, developing a strategy map, selecting measures for each objective appearing on the strategy map, reporting on those measures, and engaging the leadership team in a BSC-based strategic management process. Often overlooked, but of equal importance to the success of the change program is planning and effecting the communication of strategy and performance across the organization.

Working with a client back in 2001, I constructed a framework for planning communication around strategy. Over the course of several engagements with a variety of client organizations, my colleagues and I were able to refine this framework, and prove its effectiveness. We also learned a lesson from our clients; upon reflection they all said that given the chance to do it all again, they would have started earlier and invested more time in their strategy communications programs.

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