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Extending the BSC and strategy map framework to board members

Robert Kaplan adds an additional role the BSC can play to its already impressive feature list. Kaplan's article

Recent failures (Enron, Tyco, WorldCom) triggered several regulatory and legislative responses, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and new Securities and Exchange Commission-approved NYSE and Nasdaq governance listing standards. Currently, prior to a typical board meeting, members receive reams of paper that are difficult to wade through and make sense of. Kaplan says the risk now is that boards will become overly focused on regulatory compliance and corporate governance issues. As a result monitoring the company's overall strategy might not get the attention it deserves.

Kaplan has spotted an opportunity for his BSC in this situation: with only limited time available to review the information before the meetings and to perform their monitoring and governance functions, board members must receive the information that is most relevant to their governance responsibilities and that will enable them to more effectively participate in board meeting discussions.

Extending the Balanced Scorecard and strategy map framework to board members will enable them to perform more effectively and efficiently. First, the board should use the corporate strategy map and BSC, which together describe the company's strategy, as prime information sources. Second, it should produce a board BSC to make clear board responsibilities and accountabilities. This provides a mechanism for the board to set objectives and subsequently review its performance.

Is Kaplan really discovering new governance-grounds for the application of the BSC or do you believe he is merely a clever salesman?

High performance organizations

High performance organisations are success stories because of the effectiveness and efficiency in managing their operations. There are a number of factors that influence corporate performance.
Organisational, managerial, leadership and environmental factors have all been found to affect performance. Whatever definition one prefers, managing corporate performance poses a number of challenges for managers.
Managers at all levels need a clear set of performance indicators that will assist them in managing the business. Unfortunately, in many organisations, the issue of managing performance at all levels becomes critical only when the organisation is in a crisis.
A good performance measurement and management system should be derived from the company strategy and cascaded to the lowest level within the organisation. The approach that has been found to be very effective in managing performance is called the balanced scorecard.
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