Business Governance Blog

Business is often compared to a competitive sport. So, let’s pick NASCAR or the Indy 500 and figure out what competing teams have in common:

1. The idea or conviction of one’s own beliefs about what is possible.
2. A meeting place for testing one’s ingenuity against that of rivals.
3. Sporting the best performing vehicle they can bring to the race at any given time.
4. Employing the best driver to lead the team to victory.
5. Employing the best support team to produce and deliver success.
6. Insight into the capacity and capability of their vehicle (and that of others).
7. Attracting the best financiers who believe in realizing that belief of what is possible.

So without a vehicle, you cannot realize your dream. You can dream about testing your capabilities against rivals all you want, and talk about racing all day long and even registering for a race, but without a vehicle, you’re not even getting to the starting line. The least you need is a jalopy.

It’s needless to say that the outcome of every single race is determined by the capabilities of the vehicles that enter the race, that of their drivers and the interaction between a driver and his/her vehicle. So, how do you measure performance during the race apart from lap time? Well, there’s the instrument panel with multiple gauges that provide you with read outs for speed, engine revolutions, oil pressure, oil temperature, engine temperature and fuel consumption.

Furthermore, the performance of even the best vehicle in the world is limited by the abilities of its driver. In turn, the performance of even the best driver in the world is limited by the capabilities of his/her vehicle and that of its mechanics.

Top performance depends on:

• The ability of organizing every single aspect of racing into a single competitive force. Organizing requires trade-off decisions among equally desirable properties; choosing more of one at the expense of something else. For example, will you hire a better but more expensive driver or invest in a set of brand new tires? However, “Gold-plating” one single component part of a vehicle is a waste of resources because success depends on how the vehicle performs as an integrated whole. Optimizing a single component part far beyond the over-all standard of the vehicle will only command a marginal rate of return. Furthermore, any trade-off decision to deliberately apply lower standards of craftsmanship or safety for one or more component parts of the vehicle is a form of predatory cultivation, which compromises top-performance of the vehicle as a whole.
• The ability to intelligently directing that force towards the realization of one’s dream. All employees, including all executives, need to be united in achieving this one vision. In order to take ownership of the idea, everyone needs to agree on the definition of winning and therefore understand what’s expected of them as a team and thus of each and every one individually. Neither micro-management nor zero-tolerance policies are an option when unleashing the full might of one’s force.

Hence, you can only achieve first place, receive the coveted trophy and collect the prize money through compliance with the objective of the sport; complete the fixed number of laps without any safety violations in the least amount of time with an authorized vehicle.

The trophy and prize money represent the accolades and distinction for a job well done. Stealing the prize money and trophy or making a replica of the trophy does not bring you the honor and distinction that is earned by winning the race. However, the winner of the race will always be the winner, with or without trophy and prize money; period!

Being in business is no different and yet management education prescribes different principles. Instead of encouraging leaders to comply with the objective of business, giving buyers more in use-value than you take from them in cash-value, they teach the opposite. They emphasize making money, by teaching best practices that restrict allocation of resources that would increase a business system’s capacity and capability to serve clients, force employees to do more with less and undermine rivals!

Justifying the sports analogy

A)     Every business starts with an idea or a vision of improving the lives of other people and giving the entrepreneur the satisfaction of fathering that idea and bringing it to life.

B)     The success of an idea can only be ascertained in a place where demand and supply meet. In other words, in the absence of an audience to demonstrate the uniqueness of your products or services, you have no chance of being recognized for your abilities. Without recognition for your achievement, you will not be rewarded.

C)     The purpose of any business system is to realize the dream. A business system is thus a vehicle for demonstrating your unique abilities; if you have no vehicle you cannot race and will receive no accolades, no trophy and no prize money. The purpose of a business system is thus to run the race in order to qualify for the opportunity of winning.

D)     Business systems like vehicles are impartial regarding their performance and deployment. That means they function according to how they were designed, built, implemented, maintained and managed. In other words, a business system functions according to its Business Governance. Given the importance of business governance, any system requires a single person to assume ultimate responsibility for the success and failure of the system and therefore be granted the right to exercise ultimate authority for governing the system. That person is the driver of a business system.

E)      No system designs, builds, implements, maintains or manages itself; it requires a support team that can draw upon multiple areas of expertise. These areas of expertise need to be organized and intelligently directed at achieving a unifying vision of service to others.

F)      Business systems would perform better when their governance is guided by measurements of their capacity and capability like in a car instead of financial measurements. Imagine a racing car which dashboard provides read outs for the team’s, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Return on Investment or Price/Earning ratio. What is the benefit of that information to the driver for winning this race or the next? Financials are important but not for improving the capacity and capability of the system under your command & control. Furthermore, no performance can exceed that what the system is physically capable of demonstrating. So, don’t set unrealistic goals!

G)     Investors in a business provide financial support for the realization of a unifying vision of service to others, and they’d better back a vision in which they firmly believe. After all, their Return on Investment is directly linked to the purpose of that business system. If they don’t subscribe to the purpose of a business system, they should not bet their money on its success either. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect that every trade-off decision would be measured against the realization of any purpose other than creating use-value for others. How many clients do you know that are inspired to do business with you when explaining that the purpose of your business is to give them less in use-value than you take from them in cash-value? Profits are the accolades, trophy or prize money that one receives in recognition by your clients for a job well done!

Independent C-Level Thinking

Leadership is like a golf game where you play against yourself in moving the ball from the tee box to the hole. However, business is a team-sport. So, as a business leader you’d better take heed of what General George S. Patton US Army said: “Never tell people HOW to do things. Tell them WHAT to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”

This adage not only applies to subordinates but also to their leaders. After all, ingenuity is the power of creative imagination; a skill set or aptness in organizing knowledge into a force and directing that force intelligently towards the realization of a unifying vision of service to others.

Therefore, leaders who rely on strict adherence to best practices for leading their team to victory are lacking ingenuity and thus authenticity. Col. John R. Boyd, USAF said that: “leadership implies the art of inspiring people to enthusiastically take action toward the achievement of uncommon goals.” Success at the art of inspiring people depends on a leader’s authenticity, which cannot be outsourced! There is no best practice for being Authentic.

Our expertise is describing the principles that govern the cause and effect relationship between a business system’s component parts. Once we have identified the component parts at your disposal and shown you their intricate relationships and interdependencies, you can unleash your unique creative imagination for organizing resources into a competitive force and directing that force intelligently towards the successful realization of a unifying vision.

Your Take-Away Lessons

We learned that even the best leader needs a vehicle, or business system, in order to BE in business. The success of any vehicle depends on it’s leader’s ingenuity to organize the many component parts, such as marketing, sales, leadership and finance, into an integrated force. Most competing forces contain the same component parts that are obtained from the same Original Equipment Manufacturers, and its work force is educated and trained by the same institutions for management education. The difference between forces is in their organization; how the component parts works together as a singular, unique, integrated and open system.

Unfortunately, the current dominant thought of management education teaches leaders how to commit predatory cultivation on the vehicle under their command and control. This happens when the next available step in operational efficiency must be obtained from lowering the standards for quality and safety, which cannot fail to result in poor design, incorrect implementation, deferred maintenance and careless management. Therefore, collapse is a failure to adapt to variations in the business system’s capacity and work-load or its surrounding market-conditions. Collapse is often times self inflicted.

We also learned that the prerequisite for success is defining a unifying vision of service to others and unleashing the force of integrated knowledge towards the realization of that vision.

In conclusion, no matter what you want to achieve in business, you’ll need a vehicle to make it happen. Therefore, cherish your business like a NASCAR vehicle so that you can have peace of mind when pushing it to the limits of its performance envelop.

Executive tenure depends on your ability to change or adjust

If everything inside your business were running like clockwork, wouldn’t you be on the golf course, out surfing, or sipping margaritas with friends?

The fact that you’re reading this article is because you’re still looking for answers to the significant, persistent and recurring problems that pose a direct challenge to you personally as a leader! Don’t panic, because you’re not the only one; our management education has failed us all.

In the good old days, one could get away with an excuse such as a changing trend in consumer behavior, the longer than expected adoption cycle of a state of the art computer platform, or just the unpredictability of a global economy.

Today, Boards have become less lenient towards CEOs when it comes to under performance. As a result, CEO tenure has dropped and shareholder derivative suits are increasingly successful at replacing a CEO. How effective are you at solving those recurring and persistent problems, let alone when confronted with new or unforeseen circumstances?

Given the fact that about every business has seen their room for maneuver shrink, every executive decision maker has seen its margin for error reduced. In conclusion, executives face more uncertainty, more accountability, and less tolerance for mistakes. Today’s business climate demands higher CEO-Effectiveness than ever before, and that’s what made me believe that you would want to read this article.

Before investing in the next solution aimed at the many significant, persistent and recurring challenges to profitability and sustainability, be reminded that whatever one intents to achieve in business, it can only be realized with and through the business system under one’s command and control. There’s no other way!

Any solution that promises an immediate contribution to the bottom line through more automation, higher efficiency, faster production, real-time information, or any other best practice on topics such as global leadership, strategic planning, branding, or social media, is just an investment in doing more and better of the same. Then, no wonder that the same challenges persist or keep coming back again-and again. There shouldn’t be any surprise!

If you are serious in your desire for a different outcome, then change the system; change the structure with which the organs of your organization are connected; how they relate and interact with each other.

In order to bring about such physical change, you must start embracing the transformation of your own thought patterns by studying patterns that disrupt business as usual. For example:

√                    Leading with creativity and innovation instead of following best practices.

√                    Increasing CEO Effectiveness instead of obsessing about organizational efficiency.

√                    Developing a system’s capacity and capability instead of growing it in size or number.

√                    Fostering adaptability to new and unforeseen circumstances instead of pursuing the quest for certainty.

√                    Focusing on change management instead of persisting in routine or business as usual.

Instead of trying to keep up with the latest techniques, skills and tricks, why not invest your time and money in learning the principles that govern any business system in good and bad economic times? Would you rather enjoy peace of mind or endure decisional conflict and stress about your personal performance and thus tenure! It’s a choice and it’s yours to make. What will you commit to doing next?

IF the purpose of business is “Making Money” then basically all you care about is:

• How to Increase Sales
• How to Raise Prices
• How to Lower Cost

IF making money is all that you care about, then why not sell the whole kit and kaboodle and invest the proceeds? Why else would anyone want to put up with employees, unions, Federal and State regulations, landlords, clients, you name it? Could it be that there is a driving force that’s bigger that all that possible aggravation?

Clarification:

There is only one legal business whose purpose is to make money; The US Mint.

Their business system is specifically set up to print and mint legal tender.

In other words, the purpose of their business system is to actually make money. All other businesses have to EARN money.

How to EARN money?

Businesses EARN money in exchange for goods or services.

If you are the sole provider of a good or service in a market then people have no choice but to buy from you or choose to forego the benefits of your goods or services. As a monopolist or oligopolist you can pass on your inefficiencies to your buyers in the form of a higher price. As a buyer, your only choice is to buy or not to buy. Furthermore, you will also have to put up with any lack of effectiveness or stop patronizing that business altogether.

However, most of the time you are not the only supplier; there are others providing similar or substitute products and services to your market place. Now you’ll have to compete for buyers’ favor. After all, buyers determine where they spend their money; not you nor your competitors. Indeed, you’re not battling the competition, but pleasing the buyers.

Because you cannot please every buyer all the time, you need to specialize or niche your value proposition. You will attract those buyers that believe what you believe. Those buyers become your loyal customers who need little incentive to buy from you time and again. Price is not an important issue in their purchasing decision, although they might try a rivaling product or service when enticed by a special promotion. But when that product fails to meet the buyer’s expectation, it will also fail to win over his/her patronage. In poor economic times, having built a loyal customer base is priceless.

Downward Spiral

What is more efficient, building a loyal customer base or having to incentivize every sale you want to make? Offering discounts and rebates drain profit margins, which is especially painful in a poor economic climate. Compensating for this loss of income by cutting benefits from the value proposition makes you even less attractive than before. As a result, you risk loosing loyal customers over selling a lesser product for the same price. So, you lower your price or increase the quantity and both reduce your profit margin. How long can you keep up this downward spiral?

What People Want

You can fool some people some of the time, but you cannot fool all people all the time. People want the biggest bang for their buck. So, obtain your operational efficiency from raising the quality of your production and delivery system rather than eliminating benefits from your value proposition; using inferior ingredients or lowering quantity per delivery.

Raising quality of production and delivery raises product or service quality. Such products and services perform better within the client’s setting and thus increases satisfaction. Satisfied customers are your best advertising and public relations you can buy.

Also, employees take pride in doing their job well; it gives them satisfaction and makes them engaged and loyal employees who have your best interest at heart. Key talents that are dissatisfied will leave your employ and leave you to fight the War for Talent.

Furthermore, higher quality products and services require less rework and incur fewer warranty claims. Every activity that needs to be done outside the standard production and delivery routine is exponentially more expensive.

Realizing a Unifying Vision

Do you remember why you went into business? Didn’t you have a splendid idea based on a vision for the future? You wanted to produce something that you were proud of and to that end you designed, built, implemented, maintained and managed a business system that could realize that vision for you, right? So, what’s the purpose of your business system? You’ve got it, realizing a vision!

Now that you have grown your business to where it is today, you are closer to realizing that vision. In the process you earned money, including a profit margin that paid for that growth. Therefore, your best employees are those that share in your vision; when they believe what you believe then everyone is united in working on the same cause. Have you ever met any one who is excited to get up every morning with the prospect of making money for someone else in return for being treated as a low-price fungible commodity; an expense item? I know I haven’t!

Conclusion

If you want to improve your top- and bottom line results, you’d better improve the quality of your production and service delivery because it will lower your cost, increase your loyal customer base and win the war on talent. Why does Management Education make business so difficult and hard to comprehend? It’s not about the money; money is the reward for a job well done. So, create a quality business system for doing a quality job, delivering quality goods and services that satisfy the needs of all stakeholders and Bob’s your uncle!

Michael Porter, the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, co-authored the article titled “The Seven Surprises for New CEOs” published in the Harvard Business Review of October 2004. This article, as with all of his articles, is worthwhile reading. The premise is that CEOs assume ultimate responsibility for the success and failure of the business because they can exercise ultimate authority for changing the business system under their Command & Control. In that regard, the position of CEO has many commonalities with that of a solo-entrepreneur. However, the difference is that a CEO is separated from the operational side of the business by many layers of hierarchical decision-making and intermediary technology. This disadvantage needs to be offset by a different mind- and skill set.

The solo-entrepreneur exercises a leadership style that is very much hands-on whereas a CEO must lead by remote control; working the intermediary technology that connects the many hierarchical layers that s/he wants to influence. As a result, feed back information gets translated and thus filtered according to what lower ranking officers believe is the nature and format in which the CEO wants to receive it. On the other hand, the Control & Command information has to be sent down the hierarchy where lower ranking officers translate the CEO’s intentions into what they believe are the appropriate goals and activities. Needless to say that critical information is lost in translation and stripped of its sensitivity.

CEO-Effectiveness™

The current dominant paradigm for solving problems is doing more and better of the same, which translates for the above challenge into more and better communication- and leadership skills. However, I believe that the root cause of poor CEO-Effectiveness™ originates neither from a CEOs proficiency at Communicating nor Leadership. Just, think about the old adage from Information Technology: “Rubbish in, Rubbish out”. This implies that the business system at your Command & Control functions only as a means to an end. Therefore, no investment in tools that are used for relaying your messages and directing the business on your chosen strategic path will enhance CEO-Effectiveness.

Communication and leadership skills are merely tools for the realization of a compelling vision of service to others, and their purpose is to improve its EFFICIENCY, not its EFFECTIVENESS. In other words, CRAFTSMANSHIP, how you use the tools at your disposal, with a clear vision of what you want to accomplish with the resources at hand, is more important than the number or the quality of the tools in your toolbox! In other words, collecting the best carpentry tools on the market does not make one a carpenter; learning carpentry will! Besides, the sharpest tool is inherently dangerous to those who do not know its purpose nor the specific goal for the realization of which they want to deploy it.

I believe that the root cause of poor CEO-Effectiveness™ at the “carpentry of a business” is a lack of insight, understanding and appreciation of the multitude of interdependent functions that people perform on a daily basis, in order to make the business run as a singular, unique, integrated and open system. As a result, many CEOs are oblivious to the fact that nearly all of their decisions for solving one specific problem cut straight across the value chain, with consequences for multiple silos of specialized knowledge. As a result, there are too many examples of well intended decisions with unintended consequences that have been undermining a business’ profitability and sustainability. As a matter of fact, most businesses are destroyed from within.

Ultimate Responsibility

President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read “The Buck Stops Here”. That’s exactly what ultimate responsibility means. For a solo entrepreneur, growing a business implies that more tasks must be delegated to others. The object of delegation is the authority for making decisions related to those tasks, but the responsibility for the consequences of delegating tasks remains ultimately with the person doing the delegating.

A CEO is thus responsible for the entire value chain, which raises the question of what qualifies or prepares a person for accepting such a hefty charge. Characteristic of a CEO position is the need to formulate an agenda and show results within six years; the current average CEO-tenure. However, up to 50% of a CEO’s time is taken up with external affairs or community relations, which emphasizes the need for CEO-effectiveness; you only get one shot at demonstrating the soundness of your Command & Control over the entire value chain.

Management Education

Management education focuses on transferring specialized knowledge in routine activities that fall within a chosen area of expertise, such as leadership, marketing or finance. There are specific curricula for various under-graduate-, graduate-, and post-graduate degrees that differentiate themselves according to scope and level of detail. Characteristic of a more advanced curriculum is that students must choose a narrower scope, a.k.a. a major, which deals with the same topic but at a higher level of detail. Scope can also narrow down on the position within a business, in particular that of an executive. These programs tend to favor expertise in leadership, finance, marketing, corporate governance or human resources, but none of them specialize on assuming ultimate responsibility for the entire value chain.

Now, the real test of CEO effectiveness happens during turbulent economic times and when changing strategic direction. The operative word here is CHANGE as opposed to ROUTINE. You know that it’s time for change when routine activities are not delivering the intended results. Since 94% of all results are systemic in nature, any successful CEO must demonstrate his or her effectiveness at Command & Control over the entire value chain; i.e. the entire system, which includes all silos of specialized knowledge. Ultimate responsibility over the entire value chain is what sets the CEO position apart from any other executive role.

We learned from Henry Ford that no executive should be required to possess specialized knowledge in every area of expertise; that’s why he created a master mind of many material experts that he could ask for advice. Instead, s/he must know how to organize specialized knowledge and how to direct that knowledge throughout the value chain toward the realization of a compelling vision of service to others.

This ability of organizing and directing knowledge is The Missing Link in the Value Chain™ and CEOs are forced to acquire this critical mind- and skill set by osmosis. They are left to their own devices because no system of management education offers a curriculum that specializes in organizing and directing the specialized knowledge that a CEO has already acquired, that which is possessed by employees throughout the organization, or that can be obtained form third-party experts. CEOs must learn it all on the job without a genuine mentor to show him/her the ropes, because no-one else in the C-suite shares a similar level of ultimate responsibility and ultimate authority. The pressure to perform is on!

In Conclusion

I have chosen as my mission in life to eliminate a CEO’s need for having to learn by osmosis and to make the curriculum of The Missing Link in the Value Chain™ available to current and future CEOs worldwide.

The benefit of The Missing Link in the Value Chain™ is that it inspires Creativity and Innovation for the urgently needed Self-Renewal and Re-Invention of current business systems worldwide, which is the inevitable result from organizing and directing knowledge after it has been acquired.

Participants in the program will learn from the people that:

• Have helped the US Air Force reduce Human Error,
• Make the US Marine Corp highly maneuverable,
• Turn quality into a strategic weapon,
• and many others showing how to inspire a work force and engage their human intellect.

These sources of specialized knowledge have been around for decades and have made many organizations very successful. However, it takes Stewardship, the moral will to do the right thing, and Craftsmanship, the moral skill to figure out what the right thing is, these are the key components of CEO-Effectiveness, to recognize the possibilities and opportunities that these tools can generate for making a business profitable, sustainable and respectful of humanity. That’s why CEO-Effectiveness is crucial to your success.

Ask me about how I can enhance your CEO-Effectiveness at making tough strategic decisions in less time, with less resistance to change while giving you the satisfaction of Peace of Mind.

The economy is a system that is comprised of sub-systems such as government (supra-national, international, national and local), business (for profit and non-profit), and households. Dr. W. Edwards Deming said that 94% of the results generated by a system are systemic in nature. That means that those results have been produced in accordance with the system’s design, construction, implementation, maintenance and management. The remaining 6% is directly attributable to people and technology violating against the system’s design, construction, implementation, maintenance or management.

The results that a system produces are in and of themselves meaningless. They obtain their meaning from us; we give them meaning. We establish meaning through our vision for the business that we operate and subsequently the system’s purpose of fulfilling the mission (the products and services that we produce and deliver) on which we embarked.

We know when we are successful at fulfilling our mission by measuring the results against our:

• Critical Success Factors (Touchstones that describe a successful end-result or product/service; they determine the effectiveness of a business system)
• Prerequisites (Touchstones that describe a successful production and delivery process, which includes generating cash/funds. Prerequisites determine the efficiency of a business system)

THE CHALLENGE

The nature of a challenge to business performance is thus related to either:

• Effectiveness                           failure to meet obligations to clients/meet expectations
• Efficiency                                wasteful use of time/money/resources
• Effectiveness & Efficiency

Therefore, in order to improve effectiveness and efficiency, we use tools. However,

• No efficiency tool can fix any effectiveness challenge! Who cares about increasing gas mileage when travelling down the wrong road?
• Tools that produce excessive efficiency gains are committing predatory cultivation; they cut the differentiating properties that make people decide to buy from you!
• No effectiveness tool is an automatic guarantee for efficiency gains!

Furthermore, variance between actual- and forecasted results can only originate from one or more of the following four sources:

• Random variation;      “Management has taken a major step forward when they stop asking you to explain random variation.” -Timothy Fuller
• Strategy (assuming this is derived from Vision)
• Operations (effectiveness and/or efficiency)
• Alignment of operations with strategy (Assuming decision-makers agree on a clear sense of purpose for the business system under their command & control)

Transformational change is a function of how you THINK, and not how you DO. Doing more of the same things with better execution does not amount to any real change! Doing different things or doing them with a different intention requires a different mindset; letting go of the true and tried. That’s the real challenge that we face!

PERSISTENT FALLACIES

The purpose of a business is to make money.

Comments:

• Only the FED makes money.
• The reason for being in businesses is to create products and services.
• Generating cash/funds is a Prerequisite for success and as such a function of both efficiency AND effectiveness. A prerequisite is a means to an end; not the end in itself.

Operational Efficiency is the only tool/strategy to prevent a business from collapse.

Comments:

• Buyers couldn’t care less about your efficiency as long as you deliver.
• Efficiency causes convergence among competing value propositions.
• Eroding one’s own differentiation leads to unsustainable price wars.

THE MISSING LINK IN THE VALUE CHAIN™:

The Value Chain comprises all business functions:

 Any function performs processes.

 Any process performs activities.

Any activity performs tasks.

A task is the smallest unit of work.

Tasks, activities, processes and functions need to be:

• Designed
• Built
• Implemented
• Maintained
• Managed

In other words, tasks, activities, processes and functions need to be organized and directed towards fulfilling the mission of the company in accordance with the company vision.

Organizing and directing tasks, activities, processes and functions is called Business Governance, which is the universally known methodology for Command & Control of a business system.

The ability to organize and direct knowledge after we acquire it is the missing link in all systems of education. Napoleon Hill recognized this omission in his famous book Think and Grow Rich that was first published in 1937! Yet, our business education still specializes only on the basis of learning more-and-more about less-and-less until we know everything about nothing.

However, the key to organizational change is knowledge that specializes on organizing and directing highly specialized knowledge. This unique form of knowledge is the preeminent determinant of CEO-Effectiveness™.

But, our obsession with efficiency tools has caused us to cut cost at all cost and thus erodes our effectiveness –we have lost our relevance to previously loyal buyers. In order to regain our relevance we need Chief Executives that understand Business Governance; people with insight into a business’ functioning as a singular, unique, integrated and open system.

When every sub-system of the economy brings its own house in order, the economy cannot fail to recover. After all, we are the economy! We experience a bad economy because we have a bad way of understanding how a business functions.

QUESTION

Where do CEOs learn how to organize and direct different forms of specialized knowledge? Does the Missing Link, as prompted by Napoleon Hill, imply that Chief Executives must learn Business Governance on the job? But, if no one at the executive level understands Business Governance because no system of business education teaches this form of specialized knowledge, then how should a CEO learn other than by trial & error?

I am writing the book “The Missing Link in the Value Chain™” and I would love to hear from any executive who resonates with the challenge that I just described. Your job is getting more complex every year and yet derivative action suits and dismissals due to underperformance are rising. I want to create your Master Mind, asking the questions to which only you know the answers!