The Changing Strategy Landscape
In today's business landscape, it has never been more
important to implement solid strategies -- the unique
and sustainable ways by which organizations create
value. Yet, research reveals that companies have an
increasingly difficult time executing the strategies they
need to remain competitive. One reason for this is clearly
that while these strategies, and the business issues behind
them, are changing constantly, the tools for measuring
the effectiveness of these strategies have not kept pace.

The Most Important Work on Strategy
Strategy is a largely misunderstood, mis-directed and inscrutable part of business. Its failings in general come from a few basic misunderstandings about what strategy is as contrasted with tactics, and from the dearth of a way to articulate what may be intuitive for a visionary leader. Norton and Kaplan put forth a method for conceiving, articulating, sharing and measuring strategy that is elegant, simple, translatable and executable. Its basic foundation, a visual representation of the cause and effect relationships necessary to generate strategic goals is breathtaking in its simplicity and brilliance. I have yet to find a more important or transparent approach to the creation of long-term strategy for organizations. This is not a "page-turner", it is a text book. As such, don't expect scintillation--expect to learn the tools that are indispensable to creating real, manageable and measurable results. This is an essential part of every business-person's library.

Amie Devero, Author of Powered by Principle: Using Core Values to Build World-Class Organizations

Overview, technique and implementation
An outstandingly well written book that decribes the balanced scorecard and provides excellent examples. An effective, practical guide for C-level executives and mid-level managers for implementing strategic scorcarding. I recommned this book for the breadth and depth of the explanation of the subject matter and concise implmentation examples.

If you can measure it, you can manage it
The Balanced Scorecard was initially designed as a financial and non-financial corporate performance measurement tool. Organizations focused on strategy have taken the Balanced Scorecard and transformed it into a strategic tool for measurement. These 5 key principles transform the Balanced Scorecard:

Principle 1: Translate Strategy into Operational Terms. Describing the strategy of the organization, communicating it via the Building Scorecard in an insightful, consistent and operational manner is the cornerstone to putting strategy at the center of an organization. This principle accomplishes this by using the Balanced Scorecard to view strategy from 4 different perspectives: financial, customer, internal business processes, and learning.

Principle 2: Align the Organization to the Strategy.
The Balanced scorecard can link the many different and dispersed functions. It can clarify the values, beliefs and ideas that reflect the organization's identity, and clarify the actions mandated at the corporate level that create synergies at the business unit level.

Principle 3: Make Strategy Everyone's Everyday Job.
This principle, utilizing the Balanced Scorecard, focuses on three processes to align employees to the strategy: creating strategic awareness, defining personal and team objectives, and linking compensation to the Balanced Scorecard

Principle 4: Make Strategy a Continual Process.
The Balanced Scorecard creates a reporting system to monitor progress and serve as a link between managing strategy and managing operations. This system enables organizations to accomplish three things: link strategy and budget, close the strategy loop, and test, learn, and adapt.

Principle 5: Mobilize Change Through Executive Leadership.
The Balanced Scorecard helps executive leadership implement large scale changes that are necessary to implement new strategies. Specifically, it helps organizations specify, in detail, critical elements:
· Target customers where profitable growth will occur
· Value propositions that lead customers to do more business and at higher margins with the company
· Innovations in products, services and processes
· Investments in people and systems to enhance processes and deliver differentiated value propositions for growth

Highly Recommended!
The fact that executives keep trying new strategic initiatives despite their abysmal rate of failure is, like second marriages, a triumph of hope over experience. Or, it may indicate just how much pressure top managers face to improve their profits. By one estimate, nine out of ten companies fail to execute their strategic visions. Yet, CEOs - who witness a world in constant flux - continue to introduce change initiatives. Are they trapped in the operational definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Or, are they just ready for this book? Authors Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton offer wise counsel to help executives break the cycle of strategic flops. They advise executives to transform their companies into "Strategy-Focused Organizations" using the "Balanced Scorecard" and "strategic mapping" tools. With these initiatives, CEOs can ensure that every employee pays attention to strategy implementation. Kaplan and Norton, the all-star co-author team who wrote "The Balanced Scorecard" and "Strategy Maps", have done it again, in this well-organized but somewhat dry volume. We strongly recommend this book to any manager who is responsible for designing or implementing a strategic change initiative.