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Title: Levers of Control: How Managers Use Innovative Control Systems to Drive Strategic Renewal by Robert Simons ISBN: 0-87584-559-2 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: January, 1995 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A great book for big picture seekers
Comment: Levers of Control presents a comprehensive theory illustrating how managers control strategy using 4 basic levers: belief systems, boundary systems, diagnostic systems, and interactive control systems (the whole book is based on these 4 levers). Simons shows how these control levers complement each other when used together and how effective top managers use these levers to stimulate and guide the search for strategies in the futures.
Rating: 4
Summary: Focus on strategy implementation
Comment: The book is far more interesting than the title suggests. "Levers of control" makes one think of man/woman being reduced to robots directed by the pulling of levers. The book is exactly about the opposite, how one can have his cake and eat it. It provides a practical framework on how to combine opposing forces in managing a company. Opposites like creativity and meeting profit objectives, precise objectives and alertness to the necessasity of changing course, reward and punishment, control and freedom. Some of the insights require reader effort to understand. For example. "Strategic planning is useless to develop strategies. Strategic planning starts once the strategy has been determined." What is meant is this. Long range planning carried out by staff departments trying to involve managers is a waste of time. Real strategies evolve interactively between several layers of managers in the organisation. Once a strategy is determined a plan must be made for implementing it. However the reader has to figure out that strategic planning no longer means strategy development but the development of a plan for strategy implementation, the execution of which has to be monitored. The book covers how to deal with the positive and negative motivations of employees, how it is possible to manage the tension between a budget system (referred to as a diagnostic system) and an action oriented intelligence-gathering system (referred to as an interactive control system). These two "control systems" are combined with two higher level "control systems", the vision and core values on the one hand and clarification of authority, accountability and no-go areas (referred to as boundary systems)on the other. None of these "control systems" are original. The originality of Prof Simons is that he shows how to operate these systems so that they reinforce and complement each other. This book is very useful for persons that have experienced how hard it is to implement strategies and to reconcile freedom with the requirement of delivering predictable financial results.
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Title: Performance Measurement and Control Systems for Implementing Strategy Text and Cases by Robert Simons ISBN: 0132340062 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $132.00 |
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Title: Performance Measurement and Control Systems for Implementing Strategy by Robert Simons ISBN: 0130219452 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 04 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $84.00 |
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Title: The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action by Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton ISBN: 0875846513 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Basics of Performance Measurement by Jerry L. Harbour ISBN: 0527763284 Publisher: Productivity Inc. Pub. Date: April, 1997 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment by Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton ISBN: 1578512506 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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