The Perfect Pass

What the manager can learn from the football trainer

Ed Weenk
Foreword by Carmelo Canales

1st edition: January 2013 2013 Marcus Eduard Weenk 2013 Libros de Cabecera S.L. Rambla de Catalunya, 53, tico 08007 Barcelona (Spain) www.librosdecabecera.com Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated. Collection design: Erola Boix Layout: dtm+tagstudy Editor: Lloren Rubi Copyeditor: Alice Dowswell eISBN: 978-84-940572-8-1 IBIC: KJC

Para Pau y Marc. Seeing you run around pretending you're Messi or Victor is truly touching.

Simple is the most difficult.

Johan Cruyff

They keep moving the cheese.

Spencer Johnson, MD

For [the manager's] job is workvery hard, demanding, risk-taking work. And while there is plenty of

laborsaving machinery around, no one has yet invented a "work-saving" machine, let alone a "thinksaving" one.
Peter F. Drucker

My definition of success is that's it's not about wealth, fame or power, it's about the number of shining eyes I

have around me.

Ben Zander

About the quotes on the previous page: 1 A typical example of "Cruyffian": a famous linguistic style existing in Dutch and Spanish, mastered and practiced principally by only one person, Johan Cruyff, without any doubt one of the best players and most visionary people in football history. 2 From: Spencer Johnson, "Who moved my cheese?", G . P. Putnam's Sons, 1998 3 From: Peter F. Drucker, "Managing for business effectiveness", Harvard Business Review, May-June 1963 4 From: Ben Zander, principal conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, in a TED-Talk in the TED-conference in February 2008 (see www.TED.com

Table of contents
Foreword About the book Let's play! The trainer's big picture Prepare the season Prepare a game Gametime! Analyse game and adjust the tactics

Building a football legacy: longterm view From the stadium's press room: epilogue Appendices 1. All reflections together 2. Competitive advantage, big picture, alignment, coherence 3. Recommended viewing reading and

4. Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) 5. "Doing without doing" 6. Balanced Score Card

7. SMART Indicators 8. About the author

Foreword

It is likely that some people with whom I shared my life with intensity in the past and who know my way of thinking may be surprised to find me as the writer of the foreword to a book like this one written by Ed Weenk. In fact, when the idea of writing the foreword was proposed to me, my first thought was: what does a prologue writer like me do in a book like this? On the one hand, my professional experience of nearly thirty years as a

management consultant and my period as vice president of Athletic Club de Bilbao between 2001 and 2004, seem to put me in the right conditions for relating to a book which connects the world of football with the field of business management. And on top of this, I am also a founding partner of the publishing company Libros de Cabecera ("Bedside Books"). So far, it all adds up. However, beyond these objective facts, the truth is that I have been, and still am after reading the book, very sceptical about the usefulness of using analogies between the worlds of sports in general and football in particular with the complex tasks involved in managing.

Well, in all honesty I think that in relation to my initial position of scepticism, Ed's book represents the famous exception to the rule. The Perfect Pass is a management book based on the healthy foundations of reflecting and questioning and it is an excellent tool for the manager who is willing to think in a structured and ambitious way about the challenges he or she is facing in their profession of making decisions in the field of business and enterprise. In the book there are about twenty reflections and almost seventy articulated questions about this thing that nowadays would be called a story about the reality of management,

and I think they are very good ammunition for those who are looking for continuous improvement in their work as manager. In short, I honestly believe that this is a great Bedside Book, in the multiple meaning of the term. It is a book that opens issues, rather than close them and I also think that it is one of those books that you keep near your desk just to review it from time to time, to reread a passage or refresh certain reflections. It is true that after reading the book I'm still keeping a healthy scepticism about the use of analogies between sport and management. My first-hand experience with the management of sport

organizations and the world of management is profound enough not to have it changed on the basis of one fortunate exception. Overall I think most of the time people overly simplify things when they try to use sports challenges as navigation guide for facing the world of business. However, I think Ed gets the balance right. Using the parallelisms with the football coach succeeds in democratizing the starting point for different readers and serves as a guiding line for the main story, and it doesn't actually limit the richness of it, nor does the comparison become too rigid. Moreover, the reader will find in the

pages of the book more examples and references than which the world of sports by itself could offer. It is very well possible that the reader may see somewhat idealized this figure of the trainer, who helps the author to articulate his message. In fact, I tend to think that not many coaches are particularly excellent in covering the different aspects and elements that are reviewed in the book. Especially, I do not think that the long term view is an attribute about which you can learn a lot from them, in general. But I believe that even this little inconsistency in the analogy can lead to additional food for thought that may be valuable for the

curious reader. Please allow me to encourage anyone reading this prologue to add the book to their collection of preferred management readings; I think it is worth it. It has definitely made me reflect, it has helped me to structure my own introspection and, especially, reminded me that even the most ingrained prejudices can be challenged. If besides this, the reader is also fond of sports and football, the reading is going to be even more entertaining without losing a bit of its conceptual soundness. I have the feeling that those who choose to read the book of Ed Weenk will agree with me to catalogue it as one of their

Bedside Books because it offers encouragement and useful ideas, relevant to executing the tasks of managerial responsibility and to the mental gymnastics that all improvement requires.

Carmelo Canales Abaitua, (October 2012) Management Consultant and partner of Libros de Cabecera He was Vice President of the Athletic Club of Bilbao between 2001 and 2004

About the book

This is a book for and about managers and their fundamental role in a company. The world of football will serve as an example. The book is based on my personal experience, not only from project work and in-company training with a wide variety of companies of very different sizes in a range of very different industry sectors in different countries, but also from classroom teaching and tutoring of final projects in EADA business school in Barcelona, Spain, with students of numerous

nationalities and at different levels (Master's, MBA, Executive MBA). And as I have noticed in my work that my practical experiences, ideas and my passion for the field in which I work can actually be beneficial to others, I have decided to put some of those experiences and ideas on paper. I have done this in a similar way as I do in my work as a classroom instructor and freelance consultant; by putting things in a wider context and by asking many questions. Obviously, a book of this type should offer the reader something of value. The guiding principles that I have had in mind while writing are the following:

the book should expose a wide view, the big picture, it should be concise and of practical use for managers and executives, it should be easy to understand and common-sense should be a central concept. And above all: it should invite the reader to reflect. As said, this is a book for and about managers and their role in companies, using the world of football as an example to discuss some of the concepts I believe to be fundamental. Let me just briefly explain why I have chosen to use football, because even though I have always enjoyed following and watching football to a certain modest extent, I wouldn't consider myself an expert, nor

an absolute football freak. However, I cannot deny that since I live in Barcelona, some serious degree of football fever has also touched me and found its place in my own daily life. Besides this, seeing the impact that football has in society in general and people's behaviour in particular, I think it's fair to say that football surely is a phenomenon that large numbers of people clearly do relate to. Moreover, most of us also have very clear opinions on the subject. So, when thinking about which form to choose for the book, I came to the conclusion that using some of the commonly known elements of football

could provide a simple and understandable basis for the topics I want to touch upon. In this book, I will use the world of football as sort of a metaphor for what happens in organisations. I say sort of a metaphor, since I wouldn't want to claim that these two worlds are in fact 100% identical. It would maybe be more accurate to say that instead of a metaphor, I'll be using some analogies between football and business. In any case, I have found the analogies to be useful for explaining some of the fundamental concepts that I will be talking about.

I am aware of the fact that I'm not the first one to use sports in general or football in particular as an example to be applied to the business world. One only has to look at some of the many conferences and training programmes around the world, which are led by successful ex-athletes or sports trainers to know that there are many parallels between the two. However, most of these examples turn around concepts like motivation, perseverance or teambuilding. And since my focus is a bit different, I have taken the liberty of using the same setting of sports, but applied in a slightly different way.

The title and scope of the book

As said, I have chosen to use the world of football as a vehicle to discuss some concepts which I think are relevant for business and competitiveness, from the perspective and role that the MANAGER has in this. In football terms, the final objective of a trainer would be make sure that his team successfully finishes the season, in terms of scoring goals and of course- winning as many games as possible. Now, the far majority of the trainer's work is actually done before and after the games the team plays, because obviously the trainer

can't create these beautiful passes nor can he score the goals himself. It's the team that actually has to do this during the games, and the purpose of the trainer is to prepare each game in such a way with the team and all others involved, that the players can then do the job in the best possible way in the moments when that's asked from them, delivering those perfect passes. During the game, the trainer's influence is much more limited, focussing on monitoring the game's progress and participating with advice or changes when he thinks the circumstances require it. The analogy with the business world is that obviously the objective of a

business is to consistently score goals and win games, i.e. generate and deliver profitable business in a sustainable way, now and in the future. And just as in football where the trainer isn't the one who creates passes or scores goals, in business the manager cannot do all the work by himself, that's precisely why he hires people into his company or team: so that they can be responsible for the execution of the work and the manager can focus on doing what his job-title actually says: managing. And to a large extent, this is done by preparing his people in the best possible way for them to be successful in creating business opportunities, winning new

deals or consistently delivering on the promise. Then during execution, the task of the manager should be to monitor and interject, but only if necessary. This, if the preparation has worked out well, should be significantly less often. So that's what the book will focus on: on the preparation of the "perfect game", in other words everything that's done leading up to the season, the preparation of each game, the practicing of the perfect pass. But preparation also includes post-game evaluation and adjustments to the tactics, which basically is preparing for the next game, taking into consideration the things that have worked well and not so well

during the last game. Since in the end, the points for the championship are in fact won on the field during the game, I obviously cannot leave this part out and will not do so. But for the aforementioned reasons, the focus will be on the preparation of the perfect game and of those perfect passes, which is where I think the influence of the trainer, i.e. manager, is greatest. Something similar goes for the long-term view, the characteristics that true "football dynasties" have and the secrets behind their long-term success. I will say something about this at the end of the book, because it's an interesting aspect we cannot forget about.

I think there's a lot that managers can learn about the way their own companies and teams function, by looking at some of the fundamental aspects we see in a football club and the team on the field out to beat the opponent. Therefore, by using these analogies in the book, I want to invite managers and students in the process of becoming managers to reflect and think about their respective businesses.

The central concepts

Clearly one of the central concepts that any company and every manager deals

with directly or indirectly is creating and maintaining competitive advantage, which for me can be captured in the following three questions: What is my promise to my clients ("what")? What should I be particularly good at to make this promise come true consistently, day-in day-out ("how")? Why do the answers to these two questions form a winning combination, or in other words: why am I different/better at this than my competitors?

The term "competitive advantage" itself already implies that whatever a company does, the results always have to be put into the perspective of what the competition is doing. Therefore we normally speak of the objective to create competitive advantage, hopefully in a sustainable way, i.e. for the long-term. And I think it's important to recognize that achieving competitive advantage is not so much a matter of desperately seeking the magical solution. No, to get to this sustainable competitive advantage is much more a matter of a lot of consistent, hard and dedicated work. But even hard work is not enough, in addition to this it needs to be embedded

in a wider view, the big picture. Call it vision, strategy, road-map or whatever, the important point is that it's there, visible and understood, so that the hard work of all goes in one and the same direction. For me this would then manifest itself in internal alignment between individuals and between departments, and coherence of organisational structure, competencies and decisions taken at all levels. Obviously, with me being a practitioner and teacher in the Operations, Logistics and Supply Chain area, one of my main personal concerns is to see how a company's operations fit in with the big strategic picture. To which I would like

to add, that I normally tend to use a very wide definition of what operations are. Having said that, the experience from my practice leads me to believe that students, middle management as well as executives in many companies seem to frequently struggle with or forget about the big picture of their companies or departments. Many of them focus way too much on details of all kinds. By no means am I saying that we should forget about the details. On the contrary: as any practitioner has surely experienced (and suffered), it is almost always the case that in real life the devil is in these same details, so they certainly can not be ignored.

However, it doesn't make a lot of sense to enter too much into the details without first understanding or remembering that these details take place within a bigger context and then making sure that this big picture is clear. Only then moving on to make sure that the details actually fit in in the best possible way and that they bring us closer to where we want to go. Although the saying that someone "can't see the forest for the trees" is normally used for situations of desperation and a feeling of being lost, I actually think that it also holds for people who don't necessarily feel lost between the trees, but still fail to see the forest. So this book has been written as an aid

to those who are interested in reflecting on the question of whether besides seeing all of those beautiful (or maybe not so beautiful) trees, they also maintain the view on the forest. The perspective throughout the book is that of the manager, the one responsible for constantly making decisions and ensuring that his people's actions go in the right direction to reach the company's or department's objectives. Although for the purpose of the book, I'd rather stay away from theory, I'd like to refer to some relevant pieces of it, since they might provide a simple point of reference to illustrate my main topics

here. I'd specifically like to mention here the frameworks that have been developed by Michael Porter since the 1980's around competitiveness, alignment and big picture, such as the value chain and the famous 5-forces model of competition in a sector. More about these concepts can be found in Appendix 1. Eventually, a short comment on "competition". Although I'm well aware that it's certainly not true for all companies in all sectors, this book mainly concerns companies that have serious competitive pressures to take into account and therefore have to find ways to fight those competitive

pressures by continuously improving and/or innovating. Again, in the football analogy, we are not interested in the competition where there is one dominating team that can more or less do whatever it likes without being in danger of letting the championship escape. Instead we take the view of a very competitive league in which there are many potential title candidates.

Objectives of the book

In a few words, the objective of the book is to provide some simple and easy to understand reflections that anyone in an organisation can apply in a

reasonably short timeframe, allowing them quickly to get a good understanding of the big picture of an organisation and the direction it wants to go. Having established this broader vision, we can then evaluate if it's actually fit for getting there in the best possible way, in terms of internal alignment and coherence of people, infrastructure and processes. After making these reflections, the manager should have a clear view on the status of his company and a good basis for setting priorities and defining concrete actions. Why a book with reflections instead of solutions?

Instead of offering reflections, why haven't I chosen to offer clear-cut and simple solutions? First of all, let me quote Peter F. Drucker, in his classic article on Managing for Business Effectiveness:
"I do not propose here a full-blown [theory] if only because I have none to give. Even less do I intend to present a magic formula, a "checklist" or "procedure" which will do the job for the manager. For his job is work very hard, demanding, risk-taking work. And while there is plenty of labour-saving machinery around, no-one has yet invented a "worksaving" machine, let alone a "thinksaving" one."

I couldn't agree more, so I will also not offer this full-blown solution toolbox here for the same reasons. Better than that, is to offer the invitation to reflect upon one's activities and company, i.e. to think. Therefore, the book provides a number of questions to help structure this reflection. And why the emphasis on reflection? Well, I believe that the best basis for designing, and deciding on adequate solutions, is a very clear understanding of the problem. And for me that starts with the big picture. Establishing this from a general vision, as complete as possible within the available timeframe, is in my opinion much more useful than

trying to take a shortcut and going straight to the toolbox, looking for a specific solution. The big picture allows one to put things into perspective and set priorities. And besides, had I focussed on solutions, the book would most likely never have been concise. For whom? The book is intended to be of practical use for General Managers, Management Team members, department heads, as well as students in Masters and (Executive) MBA-programmes, for existing businesses, as well as new

companies in business-planning stage, for industrial, as well as service environments.

Let's play!

The trainer's big picture

As anyone with only the slightest insight into football and a reasonably objective view on things would agree upon, the perfect football club does not exist, just as the perfect company also probably does not exist, however successful they might be. Some die-hard fans might argue that their clubs come close to the "ideal" during some periods in their history, but this of course supposes that such an objective ideal exists, which can

be doubted for many reasons. In any case I believe that based on the analogies from the football world put forward below, any reader would be able to come up with examples of "good" as well as "bad" practice. Also, I think that the presented topics and reflections can be applied both to existing businesses in order to evaluate how well things are going, but at the same time can be relevant for planned strategic changes, like important adjustments in the company's value proposition or introduction of new product-market combinations, or even starting up new enterprises. In the following chapters, a number of

aspects of a football trainer's "big picture" will be described in more detail, from planning the strategy at the beginning of the season down to postgame evaluation and next-game preparation. The diagram below will serve as a vehicle to explain the relevant business concepts.

Note: the reader familiar with basic notions of quality management systems might recognize the key elements of Deming's Quality Cycle in the above image: Plan Do Check Act. This is not a coincidence, since I believe it is one of the basic principles of management, strategy and execution.

Prepare the season

Pre-season preparation in football consists of many different elements. In this section, the following elements will be dealt with: 1. The game plan: defining the objectives and the ways to achieve them 2. How to beat the competition: competencies & processes 3. Completing the team: having the

"right" mix of resources 4. On and around the field: creating the "right" environment Although there is obviously certain logic in the above sequence, it is good to bear in mind that it is not a path which only goes into one direction. In many instances the path is iterative and we might need to take a step back and reconsider before continuing with the next step. For instance, the case of reconsidering the strategy could start with analysing the core competencies that currently distinguish the company from the competition, to have a clear

understanding of the company's strengths. Or, to give another example, if completing the team is for some reason not feasible at this moment in time, then it might be perfect common sense to reconsider part of the game plan or redefine the tactical scheme.

1. The game plan: defining the objectives and the ways to achieve them
One of the most important people in a football team is the trainer, normally accompanied by some assistants and working closely together with the

technical director. Together, this group is responsible for achieving the desired results with the team. It's possible, in some clubs even probable, that the president of the club will define the overall strategy, including not only the what, but also the how. In other cases, these decisions will be at the discretion of the technical staff. In any case, pre-season planning would include such decisions as "are we going to compete for all possible competitions or do we focus on one or more specific ones?", "what final position in the ranking do we want to achieve?", "what will our playing philosophy or playing style be?", "how can we draw the

maximum number of fans to our games and what do we think they expect?", etc. In fact, all very similar to "normal" business planning decisions. In order to have a good starting point for all reflections that will follow in the book, I think it's worthwhile briefly returning to the questions raised before in the introduction when talking about competitive advantage. Answering these three questions quickly and on a fairly high level at this stage should give a good point of reference before diving into more detail later on:

The starting point:

What is the basis of your competitive position, where does your competitive advantage come from?

Detailed questions: What is the promise towards your clients ("what")? What are you particularly good at to fulfill the promise consistently, day-in day-out ("how")? Why do the answers to the previous questions form a

winning combination, or in other words: why are you different/better than your competitors? Also in the football world, one of the objectives would be to satisfy the club's customers. In terms of the customer perspective, we might want to distinguish two different views here. First there's the internal customer, which could for example be the president, looking for a profitable (or at least financially healthy football club) or for purely personal satisfaction or to generate a good international image of the club. Secondly, there's the external customer, in this case the fans, who

could be interested in titles, a specific playing style or the maximum number of stars on the field. The expectations that the trainer, his staff and the team build towards these two types of customers (call it "the promise"), are the equivalent of what in business context we call the value proposition. Without going into too much detail on potential definitions of the term itself, I would like to highlight that normally the value proposition of a company includes, apart from the specific product and/or service that is offered, concepts like cost, quality, flexibility, and/or innovation, but always from the perspective of differentiation,

i.e. relative to the competition, meaning lower cost, higher quality, innovation leader, etc. The value proposition, to my mind, explains the mix of (unique) selling points, which make a customer choose to buy from you and not from your competitor. Again, since value proposition is above all a marketing concept, connected to related subjects such as product-market combinations, market segmentation, positioning, pricing, etc., I'm not going to elaborate on it here, except for underlining that the value proposition should be clearly defined, especially to members of your own organisation. And by clear I mean clear enough that others

in the organisation find sufficient basis to work on their own part of ultimately delivering on the promise. Which brings us to the first reflection:

Reflection: To what extent do you consider your "promise" to the customers clearly formulated?

Questions that can help with the reflection:

Which words do you think would come to the mind of your customers when they hear your brand name? To what extent could people in your company who do not work in the marketing & sales area tell you what your value proposition is? To what extent do you think that the way your value proposition is formulated provides a good basis for developing e.g. the operations strategy, the HRstrategy, etc.? Are there sufficient points of connection to link these partial strategies?

Please note: for the convenience of the reader a complete overview of all reflections and supporting questions as presented throughout the book can be found in Appendix 2)

2. How to beat the competition: competencies & processes

After the objectives for the season have been defined and it has become clear what the targets are and which playing style will be used, it's time to define how to make it all happen. What is going to be the team's "secret" for beating the competition? And how can we make

sure that we have the organisation and tools to get there? Of course, in the end the final performance in which the games will be won or lost will be on the field. This is where passes should be perfect, where each player should do what is expected of them, and where we should score more goals than the opponent. But a trainer and his technical staff could of course also have the vision that a large part of the games will already be won before the game, by putting resources and tools to analysing competitors' playing styles, tactical patterns and key players in order to adapt the tactics to every game's opponent. Or it could be

decided that part of the game will be won by having players physically prepared in the best possible way, facilitated by a staff of physicians and state-of-the-art equipment suited precisely for the type of preparation that the trainer has in mind. We talk here about the mix of skills required to make the strategy work, from technical skills of the players on the field to the analytical or the medical skills of the supporting staff. And each of these skills can be one of the keys to the final success, depending on the route the trainer and his technical staff have set out to get there. Every trainer will have to decide which

mix of skills he needs and wants to apply in order to be successful with the team and consequently where the priorities will be put and in which resources there needs to be invested, either in time and/or money. In business terms, we talk here about competencies; these are the skills of the organisation and the people within it which make the difference between the company and its competitors. And this difference can be made in many ways.

Examples Take for example a producer of fast

moving consumer goods like Unilever. One could argue that they differentiate themselves by having superior marketing skills for identifying new product-market combinations and best-in-class branding. But at the same time, this is supported by great R&D in order to be able to match market-pull and technology-push in the best possible way. In addition, the company puts extensive efforts into aligning their supply and demand, bringing the commercial and operational sides of the company together, supported by the appropriate level of information systems, and so on.

Or Toyota, who decide to compete on shorter time-to-market than anyone else, by having teams which can more rapidly convert market information into new designs. And by having a better price-quality ratio than the competition, by having superior manufacturing performance in terms of productivity and quality, not by necessarily have state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment, but by establishing a quality-oriented culture from top to bottom, focussing on continuous improvement of processes. Or, why not, take the restaurant around the corner which encourages return visits by having good quality

food, but also by having the competencies in-house to frequently change the menu or the ambience in the dining area or, to offer the flexibility to adapt to specific diets, and all this at a very fair price. Or the company which, thinking from a long-term perspective , decides to have superior skills in recruitment and extensive internal traineeships, career-development programmes, internal academies, etc, all with the objective of capturing young talent and carefully guiding and training these staff to become future managers (in football terms, we can see this in the youth-training-systems of e.g. Ajax

and FC Barcelona's La Masa which consistently deliver new generations of talented players fully prepared in the club's dominant playing style and culture).

In the end, a difference can be made in many ways, the question of course is to be clear about where a company wants to differentiate and how it actually makes it happen. And of course, there are many different competencies, and part of them might be similar for a potential competitor. The important thing is to understand that it's the mix or combination of competencies chosen to outperform the competition, which in the

end is what we're after. A good first step to get a clear view on the required competencies is to create a competency map, an overview of all organisational and individual skills required for delivering the value proposition and differentiating from the competition.

Reflection: To what extent have you identified your critical competencies?

Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent do you feel that you have a complete view on the competencies you and your organisation need in order to consistently fulfil the value proposition? In general, how do you want to distinguish yourself and your organisation from the competition? What does your value chain look like and in which areas are you different from (or: better than) the rest? What does your organisation

need to do really well, i.e. which competencies are critical in order to differentiate from the competition and to capture and satisfy customers in a sustainable way, i.e. in the long term (resulting in lower costs and/or better quality and/or more flexibility and/or innovative power)? To what extent do you think that these critical competencies are currently well-developed and receiving the required management attention? To what extent do these critical competencies distinguish your

company from the competition at present? After defining the particular approach for how to beat the competition, by identifying the particular competencies at the heart of the differentiation, the trainer should go one level deeper in order to understand what's needed to get everything in place. In business terms we are talking here about the design of the business processes, which form the core of the critical competencies. On the one hand, primary processes can be distinguished, referring to what happens on the field during the game. On the other hand there

are the supporting processes, referring to everything which is done around the field and in the offices to prepare everything in the best possible way before the game takes place. This would also include the more strategic activities as discussed in this chapter on making a game plan and planning recruitment, to more tactical and operational activities such as preparing training sessions and materials or maintaining the field and stadium in perfect shape. Although in the end all activities and process matter, and none can be left out, especially when setting up a new structure, management time is normally limited. And in order to use this limited

time well, it makes sense to be really clear on which activities and processes are critical to the business so that attention and resources can be focussed there. In order to set priorities, a first step is to build a global map of activities and processes, such as the one in the image below, from a real life example in an order management and customer service environment.

On the basis of such a global mapping, an evaluation can be made about which of these processes are most critical for the company from the perspective of delivering the value proposition, the promise it makes to the market. These critical processes should then be at the heart of management attention.

Reflection: To what extent have you identified your critical processes and to what extent do you think these processes are well prepared to support your value proposition?

Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent do you feel that you have a complete vision of your business processes (global

process map)? In the light of your value proposition, to what extent do you feel you have clear which of the processes in the global process map are the most critical ones for the success of the company? To what extent do you feel that these processes in their current design are well-suited to support the value proposition? To what extent do you feel that these processes can be improved, for instance in terms of reducing their complexity (how many departments are

involved in each of these critical processes and can this number be reduced, how many steps are there within each of these critical processes and can this number be reduced, etc.)? To what extent do you feel that these critical processes receive the adequate amount of management attention and resources?

3. Completing the team: having the "right" mix of resources

Once the strategic path and the playing style have been defined, the next logical step would be to have the "right" players on board in order to make it happen. Players who have the technical skills required for their positions, obviously, but who also fit in with the playing style we want to display, who have the attitude we would like to see, etc. Obviously, there are clearly many different playing styles, from the Italianschool catenaccio way of playing based on great defence and capacity for quick counters to the other extreme of the Dutch-school style of total football which is of a more risk-taking and offensive nature. Is the dominant pattern

going to be 4-4-2, 4-3-3, or the more defensive 5-4-1? Each playing style has consequences for the mix of type of players we should look for. Depending on our choice, we then need to look for mid-fielders and/or liberos. These are the players responsible for consistently creating opportunities from which goals can be scored. In business terminology, this would be marketing & sales. But we also need a good keeper, defences & forwards: the players responsible first for build-up and then for making sure the goals get scored consistently. This would be supply and operations.

So we are planning the team for the new season, we know what our promise to the president and to the fans is, our value proposition is clear, we know where we want to go, how we want to get there and which playing style we want to show on the field. But since we normally don't start from scratch, before entering the market for new players it is of course important to understand the present status of the team, which players for whatever reason would want to or have to leave, which changes in playing style or system we foresee and consequently which potential purchases would be needed.

In business this happens in a very similar way and I believe it's useful to reflect upon the following:

Reflection: On the basis of your value proposition and your critical competencies, to what extent do you believe that your current staff can really contribute to the delivery of your value proposition?

Questions that can help with the

reflection: To what extent have you identified the critical positions in your organisation, in the light of your value proposition? To what extent do you feel that all key positions are staffed with people best prepared for the job? To what extent have you got a back-up plan in place for these key positions? Which important gaps do you see in terms of completeness of the team?

From this reflection we then understand the need for recruitment. But before going into that subject, I would like to make an important comment. After identifying potential gaps, we talk here about the "ideal" wish list, which of course could for many reasons be far off from the real possibilities a club or team has to invest in new players (or other resources, for that matter). This could be because of lack of money, either cash or via external financing, or because of remaining amortisation of earlier investments which prevents new purchases at this moment. Similarly in business, I think it's important to be aware of such

limitations. And maybe not so much looking just at (lack of) financial flexibility, because normally one will find out very quickly if there's room to spend money or invest or not. But if that's indeed the situation, then it makes a lot of sense to take one step back and look internally to see if the newly defined strategy is still feasible, especially when considering moving into new strategic areas, changing value proposition, product mix or geography or similar drastic changes. There are plenty of examples in practice where companies had found the "perfect" balance between their value proposition, product-market

combinations and their operations and supply chain to make it all happen, but when they tried to use the same operations for going into new areas or products, found out the hard way that their operations were simply not prepared and fit for the new situation, because of lack of flexibility, lack of experience with the appropriate technologies or the new geography, etc. And in the worst cases, even their current successful and well-balanced business was jeopardised by trying to do two very different things at the same time. So, make sure to evaluate the consequences of such strategic changes for the organisation, especially when

money or other resources are scarce and the current organisation will have to support both strategies in parallel (old & new). Identifying a new market opportunity is one thing, but being able to support it with the existing operations could be quite another. But back to the recruitment. In football, there is of course the whole post- and pre-season show we see every year with lots of speculation about which players are supposedly going to move where, which I believe is mainly of entertainment value for the general public. However, the recruitment activity around football teams seems to be a very well-developed and

specialised function, from the scouts that big clubs have all over the world, to the technical director who is actively involved in spotting talented players who would fit in well in the team and the playing system. How different from many other companies this is, especially many midand large-sized ones in which recruitment for most functions is almost exclusively positioned within a more generalist HR department or outsourced to generalist external companies. The department manager looking for additional staff will in many cases have to run the recruitment by HR, delivering his requirements via a job description

and a profile of the "ideal" candidate and then leaving it up to others to do a pre-selection while sticking to a standardised set of rules. Not to mention that in many cases your "recruitment case" would of course enter last in line, and for an HR employee it's probably difficult to assess the real urgency (aren't they all urgent?). A similar thing could happen when turning to a generalist recruitment company, which for many (higher) management jobs is the case. In my own experience, especially for more specific jobs with a certain degree of specialisation or with a certain technical component, the people doing the first

screening many times give me the impression that instead of basing decisions on the quality of the answers of the candidate, they base them mainly on the extent to which the candidate is interested in the particular job, or on very similar jobs that might already appear in the CV of the same candidate. Looking at the quality of questions that some of these people sometimes ask during first contacts and their intent to use sector- or job-specific terminology, supposedly taken from the original jobprofile, gives me the impression that they are maybe not the ones in the best position to really judge the candidates they have on the telephone or in front of them.

In terms of recruitment my view is that the purpose of these processes is to minimise the following two risks: the risk of hiring the "wrong" candidate and the risk of denying the "perfect" candidate. This risk minimisation becomes of course a different story if we already start the process off in the wrong way. Since it would be outside the scope of this book, I don't want to go into detail about the advantages and disadvantages of centralisation versus decentralisation of recruitment or the advantages and disadvantages of using external recruitment services, but given the importance of having the "right" people

on board and the complexity of finding these, especially for the more specific specialist functions, I think it would be fair to reflect upon the following:

Reflection: To what extent are the candidates for my key specialist functions recruited by people with a deep functional understanding about the job itself and the role it has within the big picture?

Please note: when I talk about key specialist functions, this could also include higher-level management functions of areas for which practical experience in some very specific subjects is a big advantage.

Question to help with this reflection: To what extent is job-specific knowledge and/or experience present at the various critical stages of the search and selection process?

4. On and around the field: creating the "right" environment

Obviously, just having the "right" players on the payroll, doesn't guarantee any success. Maybe as important as having them on board, is it to create the environment in which they can prepare themselves in the best possible way. On the one hand we then talk about very tangible things like, sufficient fields to train on, a good quality of the grass on the fields in order to reduce the risk of injuries, the availability of sufficient balls and other training materials, sufficient equipment of the appropriate type in the gym, etc. On the other hand, we then talk about more intangible things, like: is the physical environment generating the

"ambience" in which the players, trainers and supporting staff feel comfortable, do they consider the player's home really like home with TVsets, billiards, games and the like. To what extent does the stadium or training site make them feel protected from the outside world (fans, press)? In the end, both the tangible and intangible aspects mentioned above have their roots in the physical environment. In a business context we would talk about the office building, the architectural aspects inside the building, ergonomics, as well as machinery, IT and telecommunications infrastructure, the canteen, etc.

Now I'm not saying that every office should have its own authentic Italian espresso-bar, gym or large living roomstyle lounge as some companies in fact do. It should be within what can be reasonably expected in terms of costs and purpose, of course. And I even could agree to some extent with those who say that scarcity (of means or facilities) makes people inventive, but I think one shouldn't push it too far: we would want to challenge our staff and not frustrate them. What we really look for here is to have everything from strategy down to execution to be as coherent as possible, and in my opinion facilities are in fact part of this, so I think it does make sense to do the

following reflection:

Reflection: To what extent do you think your operations infrastructure (offices, technology & systems) create the environment which is fit for enabling your people in the best possible way to comply with the promises you make to your clients?

Questions to help with this reflection:

To what extent do you consider that the physical design & infrastructure of the office actually supports the work that needs to be done in it (number of desks, amount of background noise from outside or colleagues, number of meeting rooms with adequate telecomfacilities, number of "project war-rooms" with large whiteboards and sufficient markers, network speed, etc.)? To what extent do you think that the way your offices or manufacturing plant look, reflects your value proposition

(for example, if you promise high quality products or a very high degree of efficiency to your clients, do your facilities look clean, well-organised. If you offer a lot of creativity and a bit of "craziness", does your office also look a bit crazy)? To what extent do you have a clear view on whether people are happy with the environment in which they work? What have you done recently to help create the appropriate working climate (listened to staff complaints and/or suggestions, finally modernised

the canteen, placed some plants )? And, did it work? Why not?

The next step

So now we have the team complete and our stadium and surrounding facilities look exactly the way we think they should look. All set, then let's start preparing the first game!

Prepare a game

As I suppose to be well-known, training in football is KEY. Of course, many of us tend to think that those too young, too rich football players have an easy life, working just a few hours some days a week and then for another 90+ minutes or so in the weekend. But if you see a really good team playing a really good game, it isn't that hard to imagine that there really would have to be a lot of disciplined and hard work behind the scenes in order to make it all run like clockwork.

This would be in particular, training on consistency and reliability in the execution of the tactical schemes, watching individual players and letting them learn from their "mistakes", or helping them to adjust on details, letting players experiment with new things and come up with ideas. And do that again, and again, and again and again, until patterns and routines become like second nature and ultimately the "perfect pass" becomes the norm and ideally the team can do the job on its own during the game. In the next sections, we will distinguish the following elements of game preparation:

1. Playing style and ambition level: explaining objectives 2. Showing the way: leadership and walking the talk 3. Training for the perfect pass: establishing alignment 4. Training on technique: skills & competencies 5. Training for consistency: reliable quality 6. Training for new patterns: innovation tricks and

1. Playing style and ambition level: explaining objectives

Before starting to work on the individual players' skills and the required standard routines, the trainer would normally spend a quite significant amount of time explaining where he wants to go, how he thinks the team can get there, how every player fits in and what he himself will do to make sure it will actually happen. All of this obviously based on the plan laid out during the pre-season preparation. He will be transmitting strategy and his

action plan, he will explain the vision behind it and create a sense of teamspirit as well as belonging, feeling part of a bigger whole with a clear mission. In a football team, this transmission of strategy, vision as well as values is clearly a task of the trainer, although obviously his assistants, the technical director and even the president of the club should transmit the same message. In any case, the power of the message depends both on the messenger as well as on the way how it is delivered, in this I would like to stress the importance of the personal touch that the trainer brings to the table. How is this done in companies? Well,

many companies might have gone through the motions of defining a vision, creating a mission statement and putting their values on paper, but unfortunately, in many cases that's where it stays, on paper. Whether stuck on a wall or bulletin board, published on the intranet or on page 2 of the annual report, it's still only paper. It seems that in (too) many occasions in practice these things are not taken very seriously, at least not by the ones that they should be aimed at: the employees. It strikes me when visiting companies, that in so few instances people actually seem to take pride in their mission statements or values. More frequently, they will say things like "ah, yeah, that's what we're

supposed to be like", "well, it's more or less the same as any company" or similar comments. But if that's the case, then why bother investing such amounts of resources to define all of it? Or if in fact it's considered to be useful, why not make sure that these tools "come alive" somehow? In the end, vision, mission statement and values are tools which should serve a company to take it in the direction it wants to go, otherwise to me it seems a waste of time and money (and if we can't even convince our own staff of the messages, it is even less likely that we will convince customers with them). Maybe, just as the trainer in the

football team does, the manager in the company should bring in some personal touch in order to bring the message closer to the work floor. So, independent of whether you use vision & mission statements or other ways to transmit your vision, strategy and approach, I think it's fair to ask the following question:

Reflection: To what extent do you think your strategy, value proposition and critical competencies are clear to all of your staff and to what

extent do you think they understand that they themselves are also a vital part of getting there?

Questions to help do the reflections: To what extent do you have your strategy and value proposition published explicitly? To what extent do you think that your people are able to relate these strategic statements to the practical issues of their daily work?

To what extent do you think that the strategy is "alive" to your people (do you feel that they are enthusiastic about it, do they share the vision)? What have you done recently to "spread the word" to your own people and how effective do you think that has been? To what extent do you think your people understand how their own activities fit in the big picture?

2. Showing the way:

leadership and walking the talk

While I was writing this book, a column written by my EADA colleague Martn Vivancos was published in which he uses the innovative, passionate and at the same time very result-driven approach of former Bara-trainer Pep Guardiola as an example for managers. As explained before, the focus of this book is not so much on these particular aspects of the trainer's role, so I limit myself to highlighting some of the aspects discussed in the aforementioned article and which I think are spot-on.

Promoting the culture of effort ("I will not blame anyone for playing a bad game, but I will certainly blame someone for not trying hard enough") Innovation in leading the team and "walking the talk", using emotions as a key element to provoke passion and contagious enthusiasm. Allowing the team to "go out there and enjoy!". Remind them that they are there because in the end what they really love is to play football. With respect to the last point,

unfortunately there are many working environments in which people who enter in the morning and smiling are the exception rather than the rule ("what's wrong with you? how come you're so happy?"). But I think it makes sense to remember that it's good that people enjoy themselves while they're at work. We all know that for a motivated person, an hour seems like five minutes and for a demotivated person five minutes seem like an hour. For the manager that means: try to make sure that people enjoy themselves at work. At the first company I worked for, the Dutch logistics operator Nedlloyd, this was even part of the corporate values: respect people, make money, have fun. Simple, but

effective. And very true. In the same line, and for another inspirational view on topics like vision, passion and leadership, I would like to invite the reader to watch a TEDTalk by Ben Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (see www.TED.com for the video). Some statements by Ben Zander in his talk, which I think could be food for thought for any manager: "The conductor of an orchestra is the only one who doesn't make a sound" (i.e. the manager in many cases isn't part of the action himself)

"[The leader] depends for his power on his capability to make other people powerful" (i.e. inspire, give trust, create space for others to perform well) "One of the characteristics of a leader is that he not doubt for one single moment the capacity of the ones he's leading to realise whatever he's dreaming. What would you think have happened if Martin Luther King would have said: "I HAVE A DREAM,I'm just not sure if they'll be up to it""

"How can you know if you're successful? My definition of success is that it's not about wealth, fame or power, it's about how many shining eyes I have around me. And if I don't have shining eyes around me, I have to ask myself a question. And the question is: "Who am I being, that my player's eyes are not shining?"" Some might now argue that football and classical music are of course not at all comparable with business, but while for many aspects that might be true, in terms of leadership I'm not so sure that they're that different. In the end we talk about

people and how to lead people. It's true that you should lead artists and topathletes maybe in a different way than office or factory workers, but in the end we talk about very similar tools and concepts at work.

Examples I suppose that most people would know about the impact that a leader like Steve Jobs had on the people working at Apple (even when he was no longer actively involved in the day-to-day business). As mentioned in an article in Business Week:

"at Google people are happy because they can spend 20% of their time on their own wild ideas, at Apple people are passionate because they can spend 120% of their time on Steve Jobs' ideas".

Or an example closer to home from my own experience some years ago in a large logistics operation, dedicated to one single customer and located next to their assembly plant. A very industrial environment to start with and well over 95% of a total of more than 500 people in the operation could be considered low-skilled blue collar workers. The relationship with the client at that moment was very tense for a large and diverse number of reasons and this surely had an

enormous impact on the atmosphere in the operation itself. In order to reach some sort of breakthrough in the tense situation, both towards the client as well as internally, at Corporate Headquarters an important decision was taken and the site manager was replaced by a new person. And within only a few weeks' time the situation had changed drastically, at least internally. What happened? Well, whereas the previous site manager was mainly fighting the battle from within his own office, and mainly with the door closed, the new one realised that part of the problem might very well be in

the own operation, so he spent at least 2-3 hours a day on the work floor, talking to people, listening and maybe even more important, just being there, showing respect and showing that he felt responsible, walking the talk and, if necessary making tough decisions (interesting detail: the new guy didn't even speak the local language, but still he achieved to create an impressive credibility and I would say an even impressive cultural change in a very short period of time). Shining eyes in a very tough industrial environment.

Reflection: How many shining eyes do I have around me?

And in the case the answer is "well, not too many, really", then:

Reflection: Who am I being that the eyes of the people around me are not shining?

3. Training for the perfect pass: establishing alignment

A key element in any attack on a football field is without a doubt the "pass": the connection between defence and midfield or between midfield and forwards. Without a pass, each player would simply be obliged to cross the whole field with the ball by themselves, which would probably not be very feasible, nor very attractive to watch (maybe with the exception of some great runs like the ones we see from exceptional players like Lionel Messi). I would imagine that almost all readers would have at least one of those perfect

and historic passes in mind, moments of sheer beauty and genius, in some occasions even more beautiful than the goals that might have been scored after (remember that one from Arnold Mhren to Marco van Basten in the Euro cup final in 1988 between Russia and The Netherlands? The goal is of course fantastic, probably even one of the most brilliant ever, but look at the 1-touch pass preceding it... Or the one by Jan Wouters, again to Marco van Basten in the game before against Germany) But of course, not all passes are perfect, far from it actually and that's where I would like to focus here. Because if a pass is too long or too short, or too much

to the left or right, then most forwards might simply not reach it, chance gone, opportunity missed and back to defence. A great forward might be able to reach a pass which is off, which might even lead him to score a nice or even beautiful goal. However, if passes are consistently out of reach, it becomes very unlikely that even the greatest forward can keep the attacks alive and consistently score goals from impossible positions throughout a whole match: reaching these imperfect passes will simply wear him out sooner with the potential result of later on in the game not even reaching the simple ones anymore or, in extreme cases, having to be replaced.

Similarly in business, many passes which were intended to create another opportunity are in fact out of reach. Think of the acceptance of an urgent customer order, which actually does not fit in with the current workload or timings and thus interfering with the actual production planning. Or the tender-response team who after a long selection process and under tremendous pressure beat the competition and won a great 3-year contract which just happens to exceed critical elements the current capabilities, realistic cost expectations or standard specifications of the own operating units. In both cases: pass out of reach.

Or think of the sales department deciding to change the after-sales servicepackage for a certain product group and launching a communication campaign to inform current customers about it. However, after starting the communication, the IT-consequences for the external call-centre appear to be more far-reaching than expected and to a certain extent even incompatible with the earlier situation: pass out of reach. Now, I'm not by any means trying to pick on the marketing and sales-people for making so many passes which are in fact out of reach. Although from the operational side of the company they're frequently blamed for it, I'm quite sure

that in most cases they're just trying to do the best they can: bringing new opportunities to the company. And also, we all know the examples of the forwards who only move an inch when the passes are in what they consider to be exactly the right place, or the forwards who, in spite of great passes are consistently off-side. Or, for the business equivalent, don't we all know a "Dr. No" in our operations, who whatever the opportunity is, will always first highlight the problems it will cause, the huge amount of time it will take or the impressive budget he would need to get it done? But in the end, returning to Porter's value

chain, both commercial and operations are an integral part of the same set of primary activities of any company and should then also act accordingly, moving in the same direction. So, what's needed to achieve this oh so useful and effective alignment? Well, just like the basic principle of communication says that you need a sender and a receiver in order establish contact, but that we also need to take into consideration some other characteristics of both before we can actually start talking about real communication, for instance mutual understanding as well as willingness to listen which allows for a meaningful

conversation, a "PERFECT PASS" involves both sender and receiver. For example, a pass could seem perfect in terms of the midfielder creating an opportunity out of the blue and kicking the ball over the exact required distance with an adequate speed etc., but if the forward doesn't know how to handle it or he is just a bit too tired and therefore slow, it doesn't bring us any closer to scoring a goal. So, not only do we need to look at the mid-fielder and the forward from a purely positional perspective, but also at their individual skills and the degree to which they match "technically", as well as the shape they're in at a particular

moment (I would like to invite the interested reader look at some of the videos which can be found on YouTube with compilations of FC Barcelona's Xavi Hernndez, arguably one of the best midfielders currently around, to see the impact a perfect pass can have by creating new opportunities, how much vision there is behind a simple pass, that it by no means has to be technically spectacular all the time and also how he "matches" with his team-mates and how they find each other blindly). In fact, there are some very good examples around of how to achieve this "perfect pass", the good alignment, in business. Let me share some of those

here, which will hopefully serve as an inspiration. Although the examples are quite different in nature, they have some elements in common: first of all they share the vision that alignment is necessary and secondly that alignment starts by creating mutual understanding between the parties involved.

Examples Two widely used examples of alignment are ZARA and WorldCo, two almost completely vertically integrated apparel retailers known for what nowadays is called "Fast Fashion". These companies are able

to deliver new product from design to store in just a few weeks' time whereas the typical competitor would be more likely to need some months to achieve the same. Apart from the required speed and flexibility in their manufacturing setup, which matches their "commercial promise" very well, these companies are masters of alignment, having established really tight communications processes between in-store sales staff, trendspotters, designers, operations people and logistics personnel. The difference with other companies lies to a large extent in the intensity, frequency and speed of these

communication links, besides the fact that these are above all personal contacts and not just data exchanged via systems. On a strategic level, it's about seeing alignment as a crucial element in the light of trying to be as competitive as possible, by which it simply becomes a matter of focus: understanding the importance and then giving it the priority it deserves. Because even in these companies considered to be best-in-class, the communications processes didn't occur just like that, no, it has started with the recognition of the strategic importance of it, followed by the decision to build it up, and then by a lot of hard work to further develop

and improve over time. Other examples, also to a certain extent institutionalised in processes or procedures like Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) can be found in companies like Procter & Gamble or Coca-Cola. The objective of S&OP principally is to establish a structured communication and decision making process to align the supply side of a company (sourcing, manufacturing) with the demand side of the company (sales, distribution), which particularly in the world of retail, characterised by continuous newproduct introductions, promotions, etc. is one of the main keys to success.

Similar to the examples of Zara and WorldCo, S&OP is not a matter of technology and magic tools, even though advanced software might be applied to support the process. S&OP is mainly about people being brought together in order to align their individual areas of responsibility in a structured way. Again, the key is understanding the importance of bringing the commercial and the operational worlds together and giving it the priority it deserves. Another example, from my own practice, in this case from the world of logistics services providers, in particular the environment of large

deals with global manufacturers or distributors. I've lived through quite a number of these supplier-selection procedures, on both sides of the table and although these processes by nature are a purely commercial affair, i.e. someone trying to sell their company's services to a potential buyer, the content has a very high degree of purely technical aspects. So, to start with, there is the natural "conflict" between the business development or sales manager who wants everything to look nice and attractive for the potential customer and the logistics engineer who is normally somehow involved in the process and who, by character, could

be more likely to have a clear eye on many potential obstacles. To make it a bit more complex, in many cases there could also be a wide range of operating units involved, namely those who would have to carry out the operations should the contract be won and the deal closed. They have yet another focus, because they in many cases are very concerned with covering their own costs and securing potential profits, as well as with the potentially risky (or let's say "very challenging") promises made by some sales-guy far away. An interesting potential time-bomb, unless it's done well. And there, the

good and the not so good can be easily distinguished when comparing them from the perspective of the buyer. The ones that are not aligned are just not as well-prepared and coherent as the ones that are aligned.

So, how do the better ones create the better alignment? As a matter of fact it's again relatively straightforward and certainly not rocket-science: it's by involving all stakeholders in the process, not just dividing work and throwing it over the fence to the next one. It's just not good enough to bring the engineer along for the final presentation, because he's the only one who

understands the proposed design and the numbers. If he doesn't understand the selection process as such, the client's objectives in general or the people he will have in front of him in particular, it's less likely the design will be perfectly fit for the customer, or that he will do a great presentation, from the point of view of convincing the customer. The same goes for the people representing the local operating units. If they suddenly have to show up at some stage near the end of the process to "defend" an integral part of the solution without understanding the context or the dynamics of the selection process, or the

people in it, it's likely they will show up with the standard, non-customised country presentation. And that, obviously, will in most cases not give the potential customer a very warm feeling, because it's unlikely that in the 10 minutes before the meeting one would be able to capture the dynamics of the process and adapt the story to the specific setting. And customers can directly see through that, I can assure you. A more structured approach to the alignment is needed here, by meeting frequently, in person or virtually via teleconferences, videoconferences and/or virtual meeting rooms via

internet. So, once again, the key is in bringing people together, creating a common understanding. Each will still have their own specialities, expertise and work to do, for sure, but with the alignment there is an important additional dimension: the context of the work is now understood by all, and hopefully shared. And that normally makes the work much more effective: the pass will not be too long, not too short, but more likely be just perfect. In conclusion, internal alignment between people and/or departments is a key element of successful business and as said before alignment normally is not about high-tech stuff or magical tools,

but in general comes down to hard work of many people and good and clear communication between them which, as we saw already, first of all requires a sender and a receiver in order establish contact and on top of that also requires a mutual frame of reference as well as willingness to listen. In this respect, I think the following reflection is appropriate:

Reflection: To what extent do you consider your operations and marketing & sales areas to be well-aligned,

over the long-, medium- and short-term?

Questions to help with the reflection: To what extent are structural communication mechanisms in place between these departments and which of these are based on personal contact rather than emails or orders placed in the system? To what extent do you consider that structured, personalised alignment is in place with longterm perspective (e.g. 12-36

month horizon changes in value proposition, new productmarket combinations, etc.), medium-term horizon (e.g. 3-18 month new product introductions, promotional campaigns etc.) and short-term horizon (e.g. 0-4 month prioritisation of specific orders) in which joint solutions are developed or mutual agreement is achieved and where the "technical" fit between the promises in the market and operational capabilities are secured? To what extent are different

levels of the organisation involved in these communications? Would you consider the focus of communication between the people of the different departments to be problemoriented or solution-oriented? To what extent do you consider that people show the appropriate willingness to listen? When was the last time you asked Marketing & Sales managers about what they think of Operations and Supply

Chain? And the other way around? To what extent did the answers make you feel comfortable? Really? I'd like to make a small side-step here into the subject of incentives. Take the example of the forward who has a potential big bonus based on the number of goals he scores during the season. As a consequence, he might on some occasions decide to go for the goal himself whereas maybe one of his teammates is in a much better position to score. So the individual financial incentive might introduce at some points a certain degree of "selfishness" in the player's behaviour. For that is in the end

what incentives are: tools to influence people's behaviour, obviously intended for them to go in what is considered the "right" direction. However, frequently potential interference with the objectives of others is not tracked. Similarly in business, in most organisations it is not very difficult to spot potential conflicts caused by almost "opposing" targets posed upon the different departments or department managers. For instance, "total sales in Euros" as a target for the Sales Director could go directly against the Operations Director's target for "efficiency increase". The famous "end-of-themonth" or "end-of-the-quarter" effect is

a clear example of what happens in many organisations. Now, many companies have already acknowledged this phenomenon and have introduced certain global company-wide targets valid for each manager to go together with their individual objectives into the bonus schemes. And in itself it can be a good idea in order to try to establish a certain sense of global responsibility beyond the own individual circle of activities. However, I think that the application of these global targets only makes sense if at the same time there is some kind of platform for collaboration where people feel part of where the "whole" is going,

and where they can actually exercise their responsibility. The global targets should in fact provoke collaboration, or at least invite for collaboration to take place. Of course you can make "bottomline profit" into a global target appearing in each individual manager's bonus scheme, hoping that the individual will then find ways of how to contribute from their own position. But if in reality they feel the objective to be very abstract in the sense of being very far away from their real area of influence because they don't have any place where they can go to define plans together with others who potentially could come up with "conflicting" actions even though with the same objective in mind, then the

target as such will probably in the end lose what it was introduced for: the power of influencing people's behaviour to make them go into the "right" direction. In my opinion, the aforementioned concept of Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) provides a very useful framework to provoke such collaboration, with common global targets being part of it.

Reflection: To what extent do you consider that the bonus schemes in your

company stimulate collaboration or improve alignment?

Questions to help with the reflection: To what extent are targets in the bonus schemes in your company individual or global? To what extent do you think that some of the individual targets promote interests which are opposed to targets of another individual? How do you believe that these potential conflicts manifest themselves in your company or ultimately in your

company's results? To what extent do you believe that the managers in your company consider the global targets in their bonus scheme to be related to their own area of influence? To what extent do you consider that managers would be encouraged by their targets to seek collaboration with their peers in order to coordinate between them? Talking about subjects like S&OP, collaboration, coordination and incentives, a business simulation that I

use in class with students and with Executives in In-Company training also comes to mind. The simulation is called The Fresh Connection and basically the objective is to turn a company back into profitability via coordinated decisions between the 4 Vice-Presidents in the game: Sales, Operations, Purchasing and Supply Chain. Every time I do this with groups it is fascinating to see how easily participants assume key concepts like strategy, alignment, key performance indicators and incentives and how easily they forget these same concepts in the next round of play. The good thing of the game is of course that people, by living the experience, capture the enormous complexity of the situation and

understand in a much better way that in learning how to collaborate, you have to go step by step. One last comment on the sometimes (often?) difficult relationship between the commercial and operational sides of a company. I happen to think that a certain degree of "healthy" tension between the commercial side and the operational side of a company is actually very good. Instead of a very light or more severe form of adversity, the ideal would be to have a mutual stimulation or challenge. But that, in my experience, is not so much a matter of institutionalised processes or organisational structures, but much more

a matter of attitude, for example achieved by having people on board who, without forgetting about their own job and expertise are open and respectful enough to also listen to the "other side". People who think in the best interest of the whole instead of first looking at their individual interest, in other words team players over prima donnas, best fit over best skilled. Look at the football world, which as we all know is full of examples of teams without prima donnas achieving great success as well as teams full of prima donnas not achieving anything. Which, in the end, has a lot to do with staffprofiles (recruitment), attitudes and team-spirit. And these, as we have seen

before, are in the end the responsibility of the trainer, i.e. the manager.

4. Training on technique: skills & competencies

Apart from the aforementioned training on passes, or connecting with the other players, there might also be a need for some players to train individually in certain areas of improvement, either to get physically stronger or to work on receiving long passes, or even to become more versatile by training in different positions in the team. Similarly, in a business context, there

normally exists a training plan of some kind for the people in the different areas in the company. I don't want to go into too much detail here on the pros and cons of on-the-job training, job-rotation or in-company training versus external courses, but I do want to highlight that similar to other topics discussed so far, it is important for the manager to make sure that training adds value, especially in the case of functional or technical training (as opposed to sending people to training for more motivational reasons). From what I see around me in my practice, I many times get the feeling that the benefits a company gets out of

certain training is fairly limited. I wouldn't say that it's only about spending the training budget for the sake of spending it or in order to keep the labour unions or the worker's council quiet, but I'm quite convinced that training events could be used in much more productive ways.

Reflection: To what extent do you think that the training your people have had has been beneficial for the company?

Questions to help with the reflection: To what extent is there a clear relation between the courses people follow and the fulfilment of their part in delivering the company's value proposition? To what extent is training followed up by the manager of a person who has attended a course, in order to define specific actions in which the obtained knowledge, experience or skills can be directly applied?

5. Training for consistency: reliable quality

Training in defence and build-up of a new attack, training in execution of tactical schemes and passing to create new goal opportunities, from the sides, or right through the middle, training in "reading" and receiving passes and on the finishing touch, training to find each other "blindly", making sure that the connections between defence and midfield and from there to the forwards are really fluid and fast and suited for all kinds of different situations, depending on the opponent, the type of field or even the weather.

In the end, it's really about practicing the playing-systems, the patterns, creating the routines, so that at the moment when it's needed during the game, everyone knows exactly what to do without hesitation and mistakes. And the difference in preparation between teams will quickly become evident, from the "all-ballsforward-and-let-the-attackerdo-something-brilliant" type of approach to the teams which at various moments during a game seem to simply but effectively switch to another "mode", adapting perfectly to the changed circumstances. So if it's -at least partially- about creating routine, in the positive sense of

the word, so without the possible association with boredom coming into play, then what can we learn from this for business? How do we create good routine? Obviously, in business we can't rehearse 5 days a week for a few hours as a preparation for the 90+ minutes of performance on Saturday or Sunday evening, but there are certainly some other things we can do to make sure everything is in place and everyone knows what to do when it's needed; the ones giving the passes as well as the ones receiving them. On the very operational level, if we talk about securing established routines, one

thing that comes to mind quickly both in manufacturing context, as well as for office or service environments, is first of all process design as was discussed in the previous chapter and which also links clearly to the aforementioned issues of alignment and communication. Process design is then normally followed by some sort of quality procedures, process descriptions, ISO certifications and the like. I would like to make a few comments on these. First of all, that in this case I'm not referring to quality procedures with a legal requirement as a basis, which in some industries are simply a fact of life, such as in the healthcare sector. I'm more concerned with the quality systems that

many companies have in place for reasons of quality assurance, i.e. for making sure that what works well once, can actually be maintained and repeated time and again with the same quality. When asked whether quality procedures and certificates are a means or an objective, most likely any manager will tell you that, yes indeed, these clearly are a means and not an objective in itself. Because obtaining the certificate just for having the certificate will at best enable the company to enter certain bidding processes or pass certain client audits, but will in the end most likely not change much in the real operations, if it's not surrounded by a vision and culture

with a clear quality focus. Moreover, at best, it will then be a brilliantly documented archive, maybe even done by motivated quality-department staff or possibly even a trainee, but it's unlikely that the impact will be significant. Sounds familiar? Indeed, so far no surprise, but to me the above almost seems like a series of politically correct statements on quality, meant more to impress the listener than to really do anything. Because if we all agree so much on the fact that the quality systems as such are not the objective, but that they should actually help us getting somewhere we want to go, then why in so many companies is the quality system

still not much more than the not so enviable task of some people, keeping others from their work when they have to ask detailed questions about what they do, how they do it and how they archive everything. And some time later, these same people come back with yet another binder full of text and flowcharts, destined for a dusty future (unless someone very attentively hides it in a drawer somewhere). What a pity and what a waste of time and money. Even though football teams, as far as I know, don't have process descriptions other than the drawings of the trainer on the board, nor do they have ISO certificates, I do think for example that

well-documented process descriptions certainly make sense too, and I quote from an email from a team member in a recent project in a call-centre service environment:
"[Quality documents, like standard operating procedures] are useful for:

Ensuring a common understanding of processes (e.g. when discussing with other departments). Establishing a basis for process improvement (e.g. if there are important deviations in one country organisation compared to the "standard"

process, these documents could be used as a basis for an improvement project). Giving a better picture of the activities related to transport, etc. to other stakeholders, e.g. []". Refreshing knowledge for current agents, if needed. In other words, the quality documents instead of being archived are being actively used as tools for training, common understanding and process improvement. And additionally, if the internal quality champion preparing the documents has these purposes clearly in

mind when doing his work, he would also be in a better position to define the "right" level of detail in them which is somewhere between too high level and too extensive and detailed. Because then not only are typical factors like "completeness" or "correctness", which are maybe more aimed at the auditors that come by for certification purposes, taken into consideration. No, all of a sudden "practical usability by own staff" or "user-friendliness" also become critical factors for the document, which for sure will be of great value in stimulating their internal use.

Reflection:

To what extent does your quality management system support your business and as such justify the efforts put into creating and maintaining it?

Questions to help with the reflection: To what extent do you find direct links between your quality management system and your value proposition? To what degree do you think that the people involved in the quality management system spend their time mainly on

generating documents? And to what degree on making sure that these documents are being used effectively? To what extent do you see departmental managers really interested and/or actively involved in the development, usage and/or maintenance of the quality management system? Why not? One short word about audits. Recently, when I was visiting a supplier to the automotive industry with a group of students, one of them asked the General Manager of this company how frequently they audited their suppliers. The

company was working to a great extent according to what could be considered the Toyota principles of management as formulated in the Toyota Production System (TPS), which by many is considered to be the example of best practice in manufacturing and quality management. Apparently that had raised the impression that part of this way of working would be doing many supplier audits, in order to secure consistent supply of a high quality and not risking the low-inventory just-in-time philosophy. The answer was surprisingly simple and of delightful common-sense:
"We don't really do supplier audits. Of

course we screen them thoroughly before they can enter into business with us at all, but from that moment onwards we work so closely together on a daily basis that doing specific and extensive audits would be a complete waste of time and effort. We'd rather focus on making sure the daily business with them works well, by following up and solving quality or delivery issues on the spot when they occur (and not by just shouting at them and pushing the problem back in their field!), and if necessary with some improvement project launched. In parallel there is another platform where we can discuss the medium- and long-term future."

And even without supplier audits, this particular company is one of the most quality-oriented companies I have ever

seen: it's in the very veins of all staff, you feel it when you walk around, you can smell it in the air. But for them, doing audits for the sake of doing audits is just not part of their vision, and I think they're right.

6. Training for new tricks and patterns: innovation

In order to continuously make good progress and challenge players to keep developing new tricks and patterns, an important element in the work of any trainer is that during training he creates space for experimentation and play:

innovation and continuous improvement. Although any player will be playing with a ball all the time, every day, just for the fun of it, in the end it's the trainer who decides to dedicate time to this in a more structured way and for the benefit of the team, not just for the fun of the individual player, and embedding it in the global vision or linking it to the already existing patterns or the other players. For the people who might have the idea that innovation is something exclusively related to science, R&D or product development and that continuous improvement is something for the quality department and certainly not for the

people on the work floor for whom it would only be an undesired interruption for being productive, let me share the following story, as explained to me during another recent company visit.
"First of all, in the company we all have completely clear why we have implemented our quality management philosophy and approach to continuous improvement: we are a manufacturing company of industrial products, located in Spain, but part of a multinational conglomerate with similar production sites all over the world. This means that if we cannot demonstrate that we continuously challenge our own processes and ultimately, cost and quality levels, which is at the same time by the way also what our customers are looking for, we are giving the top-management at

Global Head Quarters the perfect excuse of taking production to another place somewhere else or we give the customers a good reason to change to another supplier. When we started with the new quality approach approximately 10 years ago, it was a revolution in our way of working and looking at things, but because everyone understood and agreed on the reasons behind the change, we have managed to do it. By the way, we're not done yet even after 10 years, in fact we all believe that we never will be, it's a continuous effort, we can only go on and keep looking for more improvements. Sometimes you wonder where on earth we will find new improvements after so much scratching at the surfaces already done

over the past years. But every year, year and again, we manage to improve yet another bit. And the key is in the people. Everyone is stimulated and challenged to come up with new ideas and people really respond. By the way, this is not because of financial incentives, which in fact we don't use, but simply because they feel the shared responsibility for the future of the plant. And besides doing their daily job in the best possible way, this is how they can each contribute to that objective. And they feel proud. Based on initiatives from our people in the factory, line management and/or supporting staff (we aim at 3-5 improvement ideas per employee per year), we usually organise somewhere between 80 and 100 multi-disciplinary improvement workshops per year."

I think the example shows that first of all, continuous improvement or innovation are not always about big step changes, but also about small incremental innovations in tools, processes or information flows. Furthermore it shows that it's a subject that requires involvement at all levels, from the boss at the top right down to the factory floor and which is certainly not limited to the Quality Department. And last but not least, it works just better if the vision is shared by all, which, once again, is easier to achieve if it's coherent with the strategy and value proposition. And if it's led by a trainer who spreads the word and walks the talk.

Even though I find it one of the key areas of importance when thinking about the competitiveness of companies I will not dedicate much more space to this subject here, since there are many books dedicated to the subjects of innovation and continuous improvement and written by people much better positioned to do so than I am. I can especially recommend the articles and books written on the subject by my EADAcolleague Franc Ponti (such as the article "the 7 strategies of creativity", or his latest book "If it works, change it!"). What interests me from the perspective of my book is mainly how to make sure that innovation and continuous improvement fit in with or can be made

coherent with competitive strategy or the value proposition, for instance in the way that the company in the aforementioned example did. So I'll just finish this section here with the following reflection:

Reflection: To what extent do you stimulate new initiatives, innovation and continuous improvement throughout the whole organisation as part of your overall strategy?

Questions to help with the reflection: To what extent are innovation and continuous improvement actively pursued in the company? To what extent can you say that everyone in the organisation feels part of the responsibility for improving continuously (where did the majority of ideas come from and who followed up on them)? To what extent are you happy with the quantity and quality of improvement ideas that have been generated during the last

year? To what extent have these improvement ideas brought you any closer to reaching the company objectives? Why not?

The next step

So, finally, we have put in a lot of effort in preparing ourselves for the game, the objectives are clear and so are the patterns and routines that we have practiced so extensively in our training sessions and on top of this, we even have some new tricks up our sleeves.

We feel really confident now, so let the game begin!

Game-time!

The far majority of the trainer's work is actually done before and after the games the team plays, because obviously the trainer can't create these beautiful passes nor can he score the goals himself. It's the team that actually has to do this during the games, and the purpose of the trainer is to prepare each game in such a way with the team and all others involved, that the players can then do the job in the best possible way during the game. During the game, the trainer's influence is much more limited,

focussing on monitoring the game's progress and contributing with advice or changes when he thinks the circumstances require it. Of course, if perfect preparation existed and if the trainer had reached precisely that level of perfection, the "perfect game" would have come to be the norm and the team should be able to do the job completely on their own during the game. The trainer would then have reached the status of "doing without doing", meaning that yes, he's physically there, somehow present, totally in control, but without the need to participate, since the players will be so well-prepared for a variety of situations

that they will have become autonomous, as a group in this case (please also see the appendix on "Doing without doing"). He can then take a step back, sit down and simply enjoy the play of his team. However, just by looking at some current-day trainers at work during games, from the more expressive ones like Guardiola, Mourinho and Van Gaal to seemingly calm trainers like Wenger, Ferguson or European and World Champion Spain's trainer Vicente del Bosque, it becomes obvious that it's very unlikely in most football games that a trainer can just sit at the bench and watch a game of his team without doing anything.

Even if their nerves allowed for this, and even if the game was going "well", then still it's likely that there would be some moments when things are not running smoothly enough, when players get injured, when patterns need to be adapted or when players need to be changed in order to recover for next game. In other words, the trainer has to be there with full attention all the time and ready to get involved whenever he feels this necessary, but without disturbing the dynamics and the momentum of the parts which actually are doing very well. And to a certain extent respecting the personalities of the individual players, not demotivating them even if they might be replaced at a

certain stage during the game. Equally in business, however good the preparation has been, unforeseen things might, and probably will, happen. The manager needs to be ready to adjust the course whenever he sees that his people need this type of support or when they clearly demonstrate incapacity of doing it on their own. In business we could refer to this as management-byexception: letting things run more or less autonomously under responsibility or your people, until either the explicit facts or the more implicit signals indicate that something is not working well. We talk here then mainly about reading

the signals and about management styles and leadership. About the soft skills of management, like coaching, leading, transmitting vision, giving advice, influencing behaviour, resolving team conflicts, etc. And all this, taking into consideration that the manager normally deals with a wide variety of people with potentially very different characters, so that each person in a way has their own "user manual". I would like to leave this topic here with the following reflection on one particular aspect of leadership in general and managers in particular that I see a lot around me: the manager who wants to score all goals and win all

games by himself.

Reflection: To what extent do you think your managers actually manage?

Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent do you think your managers focus on getting their departments and their people forward?

To what extent do you think that your managers give their people room for making autonomous decisions instead of simply telling them what to do? To what extent do you think that your managers intervene with their people's actions, correcting them, instead of preparing them to do a better job?

The next step

End of the game, let's analyse what went well and not so well and where we can and should improve!

Analyse game and adjust the tactics

One could argue that once a game has been won, everyone over time will forget about how it was actually won, so therefore it doesn't actually matter if it was beautiful or ugly, if we stuck to our philosophy and style or not, or if we actually kept all of the spectators happy or if half of them left the stadium before the end of the game. Obviously, you don't see all of these aspects later on when you are looking at the "Trophy

With The Big Ears" in the club's museum. And probably you don't care either. And it might actually be true that for very special occasions such as a Champions League-final at the end of the season you don't care about how you win and there is a decision to go all-out and win however you can and whatever the consequences after the game. However, for the majority of the other games, for instance the ones within the regular competition, where that one game is one of many which in the end all together count for winning the league, it is likely that the final result, win or loss, is at least not telling the whole story. So, the

indicator of "games won" in the ranking only shows a part of reality and relevant other aspects will have to be taken into consideration as well to be able to take corrective action when preparation for the next game starts. That's why the trainer and staff normally would also look at other statistics, such as ball possession, number of passes and number of shots on target, fouls committed and yellow and red cards received, injuries and if so in which positions and individual player's statistics, such as minutes played, etc. Again, all of these indicators taken together tell the trainer how things have gone, way beyond the final score and

give him valuable input for the following training sessions, in which the next game will be prepared. For example, indicators of effectiveness (shots on target, possession, passes) will signal the execution of the tactical plan defined before the game and indicators of staff (injuries, cards received, minutes played) signal potential changes in the team that will have to be made for next game. Similarly, in a company it would also be fair to ask for more than just "did we win the contract?", "how much money have we invoiced so far?", or "what's our EBITDA year-to-date?". These are important, for sure, but they only tell part

of the story, and maybe not enough to take effective decisions or remedial action, since they mainly show the final result and not really how it happened. Many readers will now probably say that in their organisation they don't only look at the few aforementioned indicators and that, in fact, a wealth of other data and indicators is available in systems, business data-warehouses or in reports of many different types. Seems fine, good to know that the indicators are there, but that's not really the point, I would argue, because it's not unlikely that it's the same story again of the forest and the trees. More data or more indicators in most cases does not lead

straightforwardly to more insight on what's going on, because we might see many trees but we don't necessarily have a clear view of the forest. The obvious challenge is to find the balance. Certainly it's not OK to have a very limited set of indicators which focus only on one aspect of the business (financial in most cases), but having too many indicators carries also a real risk, since one can only handle so many at a time in a sensible way. The trick for the manager would be to have a concise but at the same time complete overview of the main important business aspects. Important for understanding what happened and important for

understanding potential "whys", but also for understanding where we are and what we can expect next. All of this together would then provide the global view to those responsible for making decisions. How many indicators does one need then? Evidently, no standard answer can be given, which would cover all possible situations, but I have seen examples of high-level reports containing 8-12 indicators, focussing on different aspects, which I found both simple to understand and at the same time convincing in their completeness. Whether the number of indicators be closer to 8 or to 12, this would then be

the set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) for the manager. With fewer it would probably be difficult to display the whole BIG PICTURE, with more it would probably become too difficult to analyse and interpret the most relevant aspects. In this context of KPI's, Kaplan & Norton propose their concept of Balanced Scorecard, distinguishing 4 different categories of indicators that can be used to create a view of the big picture. Another important aspect to keep in mind when defining indicators is that they should be SMART: Simple, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic and Time-constrained. Like many of the

subjects as discussed so far, this might seem very simple and straightforward and conceptually speaking it actually is. However, in practice it's not always easy. In my experience, there at least two of the SMART-dimensions which almost always appear to be problematic. First of all, the A of Acceptable. This means that an indicator should be expressing something which from the perspective of all involved should be accepted as representative for the performance of the area or activity it is introduced for. Since this in many cases has a high degree of subjectivity, agreement is sometimes difficult to reach. Even a seemingly simple logistics

indicator like on-time delivery can cause this type of problem, since it's not always clear when the exact moments of measurement is, which steps of the process should (or should not) be included, and what the margins for acceptable deviation should be. But in the end, if there's no agreement on the indicator, it doesn't serve for anything. A second problematic dimension, to a certain extent related to the previous one, normally proves to be the T of Time-constrained. In many cases, the indicators are simply only measured and followed, but no target-value is added with a specific moment in time by which a certain level or improvement should

be reached. Sometimes, the argument is that nobody knows what the target value should actually be, so that it doesn't make sense to introduce it. Where this might actually be true in the case of implementing something new, reality shows that apparently the implementation period never ends, since even a year after there's still no target value introduced and monitored. Sometimes, because of not reaching the A of Acceptable, in many other cases, simply because no-one actually made the step. As with many of the other subjects, I think that in order to make it work, it's something one has to go through, which

is maybe not always easy, but if the underlying idea is clear as well as the reason why it should be done, it should receive the priority it deserves (see appendices for an overview of the balanced scorecard and SMART indicators). I'm sure that if the manager's set of KPI's is well-chosen, (a large part of) this set can at the same time serve for publication to the other employees of the company. Besides keeping them informed, such an overview helps to create a unified and common view on where you are and where you're going. As such, it has its own role in communicating the big picture and

facilitating alignment within the company. Similar to the points mentioned when discussing the publication of vision, mission statement and values, by publishing KPI's the importance is not so much on which platform or wall they are visualised, but on helping them "come alive" with the people. Just as the football trainer will share his thoughts personally with the team and the players after a game, I think it makes sense to not only publish the statistics, but also dedicate some time for explanation or interpretation together with the staff. Otherwise, with the odd exception of the employee fascinated by numbers, for

most staff it might just be considered yet another piece of paper on the bulletin board, next to the weekly menu of the restaurant. A last comment on the remaining (possibly many) indicators and reports that you might see around in your company. These could of course still be useful, I wouldn't say they're not, but these would be for different people, or in special situations even for yourself, but then just in case there was a need to zoom in on a particular subject, because a higher level indicator showed a value or trend which drew your attention in either positive or negative way. So don't throw them away, just make sure you

(and others) don't drown in them. Remember, the manager is not the business analyst and the job of the manager is not to prepare and analyse, but to interpret and synthesise and take decisions. So, just as the trainer uses his set of statistics for determining his next actions:

Reflection: To what extent do you feel that you have a complete overview of how well your business is

performing now and how likely it is that it will continue in the same way and/or improve/deteriorate?

Questions to help with the reflection: To what extent do you have a regularly updated view of your financial status, i.e. not only invoicing or profit, but also e.g. cash flow or cost of money tied up in inventory? To what extent do you have a regularly updated view of customer satisfaction, not only based on e.g. contractually

agreed indicators, but opinions "from the field"?

also

To what extent do you have a regularly updated view of internal operations, not only cost & efficiency in manufacturing & distribution, but also the state of affairs in e.g. marketing & sales or R&D or the interfaces between departments? To what extent do you have a regularly updated view of how you are preparing yourself for the future, not only of compliance with the planned training hours, but also e.g. if best practices are being shared

or improvement ideas from the work floor are being stimulated actively? To what extent do you feel that your indicators are SMART? To what extent do you feel that the effort spent on preparing indicators is justified by the quality of the insights you get out of them? To what extent do you feel that the effort spent on preparing indicators is justified by its contribution to the creation of a common view under your staff?

And another reflection which I think is also appropriate to make after a game, and which is maybe more difficult to capture in the numbers is: did we stick to our playing style and the patterns we practiced so much during our training sessions?

Reflection: To what extent do you think you and your people stick to the defined strategy and value proposition in a consistent way?

Questions to help with the reflection: To what extent does the impression that new customers have about your company coincide with your "official" value proposition? To what extent do you see "conflicts" in operational details between for example operations and marketing & sales after new deals have been closed? To what extent do you frequently have urgent or off-spec orders, i.e. which go beyond the "standard" product or service definition?

With the post-game evaluation it will have become clear if any changes are necessary for the next game. These changes could be wide-ranging, from more operational aspects like the corners which didn't really work well so more training is required, to more medium- to long-term aspects like a player having been injured and an alternative needs to be found, either from the club's own academy or out on the market. Similarly, in business, corrective actions happen all the time, from very direct operational decisions on procedures which do not work well and need to be adjusted or temporary re-allocation of

staff to more medium- to long-term decisions, for example about launching improvement projects of which, given their complexity, the first results would be expected in months rather than weeks after kick-off. Especially in the last case, of launching improvement projects, in my experience many companies seem to have far too many projects on their list, it's not unlikely that even at department level there would be more than 20 projects defined, of course all of them perceived to be of the highest priority or maybe already on the list for 3 years. What I think is missing in many of these cases, is a simple mechanism to

prioritise projects by putting them into a wider perspective. Normally they would all be borne out of a detected necessity, a complaint, continuous mistakes in a process or the like. However, normally time and resources are scarce and you simply can't do it all, so it makes perfect sense to try and identify which projects for example have the best relationship between required efforts and expected outcome and/or most positive impact on our value proposition. In fact, a standard project management tool like the "project charter" or "project data sheet" already contains space to formulate all of this, but apparently not many companies use this in a structured

way, so I think it's fair to make the following reflection:

Reflection: On the basis of which criteria do you prioritise and decide to approve an improvement project?

Questions to help with the reflection: To what extent is the business trigger of each project clear? This would be the "why?" of the

project, what would be the consequences if we didn't do anything about the issue? To what extent is the size of the problem clear? To what extent is it clear how the project relates to our value proposition? To what extent do you have a clear view on the objectives of the project (push for quantification, target values of some kind) and to what extent do you have a clear view on the expected costs and benefits (if possible quantified in money)?

In any case, before giving the green light for any project of certain size, I think it's very useful to ask someone, and in many cases this would probably the person claiming the importance of the project, to specify as a minimum the answers to the above questions, apart from basic info like people required and expected timings. By getting this information on the table for each potential project, the decision making process will be much easier, since a much more objective comparison can be made between the different project options which most probably compete for the same resources. And in the end, what should drive efforts

and priorities is, once again, the direction where we want to go: the big picture.

The next step

So, with the post-game evaluation and the actions we have identified as priority to work on to improve, we now know what we should focus on in order to get ready for the next game! And in a similar fashion, for the game which comes next, and the one after that, until we reach the end of the season, hopefully having complied with the objectives we set ourselves before we started.

Building a football legacy: long-term view

In order to make the book of practical use for managers at different levels, the major part of the book has its focus on the things that can be done on the short and medium-term, given the character of the reflections presented, which can be directly applied to ongoing business. At the same time, of course, one should not forget the long-term perspective, which maybe is more a question for company owners or CEO's. In football terms, as a friend of mine recently put it, how come that Manchester United is capable to consistently perform on such high levels of quality and with good results? Or look at Real Madrid during certain periods in its history, or at

Liverpool or Bayern or Ajax in the 1970's and 1980's for similar stories. And, of course, the recent history of FC Barcelona. In addition to the items mentioned throughout the book, at which these clubs no doubt are very good as well, some other dimensions come into play. First of all, I think it's fair to say that the true football dynasties not only have a clear vision and strategy for the immediate future, but that these are also embedded in a longer term vision about what the club wants to be like, an institution with a clear and constant image, which stands for certain values, such as playing style, constant attention

to educating young players inside the club or being an active player in the local community, an integral part of society, offering entertainment or identity to the people. Or whatever other long term objectives a club might have. Secondly, and I think at least equally important, is achieving continuity and consistency in terms of sticking to the values, not changing the whole club according to the latest trends, but rather being faithful to itself and what it stands for. Although I immediately will admit not having done a thorough study on the subject, I think it can be concluded that most of these successful football dynasties also guarantee to a certain

extent their own continuity and consistency in values because of the people associated to the club throughout the years. Think of football icons like Beckenbauer, Cruyff or Sir Alex Ferguson and the strategies and values that Bayern Mnchen, Ajax, FC Barcelona and Manchester United stand for and the link to the continuity in these clubs seems pretty clear: the presence and influence of visionary leaders. Of course, these people are not responsible on their own, in some cases they might not even have any formal responsibility at all, but their importance lies more in the philosophy and vision they stand for

which strongly attracts other people who then want to play an active role in securing its continuity and future. Likewise in business, one can look for instance at the all-time brick-and-mortar icons like General Electric, Toyota, Coca-Cola or relative newcomer Inditex or digital heroes like Apple, Google, Microsoft or Oracle to see a very similar phenomenon taking place. And many other, less successful, companies, where every so many years management changes completely, with every new CEO again trying to establish a new strategy with a new set of values attached to it. Obviously, from the perspective of the

working people who form the company and who in many cases spend a good part of their lifetime there, it's much more motivating to work in an environment in which they can share the vision and where they see that it provides clear direction into the future, than in an environment in which every three to five years the strategy changes or another re-organisation announced just depending on the CEO whose turn it is.

From the stadium's press room: epilogue

(from our special reporter) When looking back at the football seasons 2010-2012 in some of the European competitions as well as the UEFA Champions League, I hope that the reader will agree with me that at the highest level we have seen some impressive champions and performances. Starting with the example of FC Barcelona, probably one of the best teams of this period. But let's not forget the equally impressive seasons of, for example, Bayern Mnchen, Real Madrid, Manchester United, and the two teams from Milan, all winning their national leagues, their national Cup

finals, as well as constantly reaching the final rounds of the Champions League. And however different their styles and approaches, from the Bara's tiki-taka style, to the feared counterattack of Real Madrid ("la pegada"), it seems clear to me that they have something important in common: a very clear vision on what they want to achieve and how they want to do it, a very visible and inspirational leader to give the example and walk the talk and on top of this well-balanced teams with players who can complement each other, who share the same vision, who as a team fit very well to the defined playing style and who are willing to give it their utmost in order to

make it all happen. And no doubt, all of this supported by a large number of anonymous people in the clubs believing in the vision and willing to take on the challenge. And let's not forget: we have seen a lot of perfect passes.

Big picture, alignment and coherence

Now, the challenge is yours as well, to reach something similar in your companies. It's a difficult task for sure, requiring a lot of thinking and a lot of hard work. The good thing maybe is that it's not any different for your

competitors; they have to think and work just as hard as you. Or maybe even harder. And they probably will. I would like to finish where I started, with another quote from Johan Cruyff:
"I don't really care if my opponent scores 0, 1 or 5 goals, I just have to make sure I score one more."

Good luck with the preparation of your next season. I wish you a lot of "perfect passes" and a good position in the final ranking!

Alella (Barcelona, Spain), December

2012

Appendices

Appendix 1: Porter's value chain

Competitiveness, big picture, alignment, coherence

Although for the purpose of the book, I'd rather stay away from theory, I'd like to refer to some pieces of it, since they provide a simple point of reference to illustrate my main topics here. Below diagram shows the value chain as

developed by Michael Porter in the 1980's:

Says Porter: "The value chain disaggregates a firm into its strategically relevant activities in order to understand the behaviour of costs and potential sources of differentiation. A firm gains competitive advantage by performing these strategically important activities

more cheaply or better than its competitors". Furthermore, "although value activities are the building blocks of competitive advantage, the value chain is not a collection of independent activities but a system of interdependent activities. [] is a recognition of the importance of linkages". From Porter's concept of the Value Chain, I'd like to highlight the following two elements: First of all, Porter talks about the objective of performing strategically important activities cheaper and/or better than the competition. In other words, Porter says that one has to

understand that for improving the competitiveness of a company, a difference can be made in any one or more of the strategically important activities. Competitiveness is then something which is the consequence of, or related to the operational capabilities of the company, is something which is perceived by their customers, and ultimately is something which is at the heart of a company's profits. The implication of this is that each of the activities in the Value Chain can be used to create a competitive advantage and that a view on the big picture is required to put everything into perspective. The analogy in football would be the

individual qualities that each player on the field or the supporting staff might have and the role each of them can ultimately play in winning games. And at the same time you can't understand the functioning of the whole well unless you have a view on all components involved. Secondly, Porter stresses the fact that activities are interdependent and not isolated. As a consequence, anyone who achieves a good alignment of these activities would either create optimisation or improved coordination between areas. This would manifest itself for instance in a set of high-quality and smart business processes across

different areas, leading in the end to cheaper and/or better performance. And at the same time, given the interdependency of all areas, one would have to make sure that action or initiatives in one area would have to be coherent with actions and initiatives in another. In football terms, here we talk about the quality of the passes on the field, about the ball moving between the players and ultimately, about the number of assists, which actually have goals scored from them. Furthermore, we then talk about the extent to which the people involved in the preparation of the team are supporting the players in their work, enabling them to be as effective as

possible and reaching in the end the overall team objectives. So the main focus of the book is on competitiveness, the big picture, alignment and coherence between the elements of an organisation. In the book I'll talk mainly about some of the linkages that I consider to be critical, based on my own experience and practice. Although I will certainly not forget the supporting activities, the main focus will be on the linkages within what Porter calls the "primary activities", which are those "activities involved in the physical creation of the product and its sale and transfer to the buyer, as well as after-sales

assistance". Given the integrated view necessary to see the big picture and to evaluate alignment and coherence, I cannot avoid entering into some organisational and managerial territories which are not necessarily of my primary expertise. Just the same as in my project work or classroom case-method teaching, I will certainly not step away when this happens, but I will seek the challenge to explore the interrelationships with other areas and the border-lines between them. Two more comments on Porter. First of all, whereas the Value Chain as such looks mainly inward into the company to

determine in which areas or elements the origins of competitive advantage reside, there is another dimension to competitiveness which has also been elaborated extensively by the same Porter: the context of industry sectors or even countries. When looking at this, he takes a more outward view of competitive pressures to which a company is exposed. His famous 5forces model provides a framework for describing these competitive pressures (competitor rivalry, product substitutes, suppliers, customers, new entrants). And to finish the theoretical part, the original concept of the Value Chain was maybe intended for organisations

involved in the production and/or distribution of physical goods. However I would argue that the framework to a large extent would also be valid for organisations which "produce" services rather than physical goods. Certainly, the concepts and reflections that I present in the book can in my opinion be applied in both.

Appendix 2: All reflections together

In this appendix, the reader will find an easy-to-use overview of all reflections and supporting questions as presented throughout the book. With this overview, a quick insight can be established of how well-prepared your company is.

Preparing the season

1. The game plan: defining the objectives and the ways to achieve them The starting point, as point of reference for all following reflections: What is the basis of your competitive position, where does your competitive advantage come from? Detailed questions: What is the promise towards your clients ("what")? What are you particularly good at to fulfil the promise consistently, day-in day-out

("how")? Why do the answers to the previous questions form a winning combination, in other words: why are you different/better than your competitors? Reflection: To what extent do you consider your "promise" to the customers clearly formulated? Questions that can help with the reflection: Which words do you think would come to the mind of your customers when they hear your

brand-name? To what extent could people in your company who do not work in the marketing & sales area tell you what your value proposition is? To what extent do you think that the way your value proposition is formulated provides a good basis for developing e.g. the operations strategy, the HRstrategy, etc.? Are there sufficient connection points in the value proposition to link these partial strategies?

2. How to beat the competition: critical competencies and processes Reflection: To what extent have you identified your critical competencies? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent do you feel that you have a complete view on the competencies you and your organisation need in order to consistently fulfil the value proposition? In general, how do you want to distinguish yourself and your organisation from the

competition? What does your organisation need to do really well, i.e. which competencies are critical in order to differentiate from the competition and to capture and satisfy customers in a sustainable way, i.e. on the long term (resulting in lower costs and/or better quality and/or more flexibility and/or innovation power)? To what extent do you think that these critical competencies in the current situation are currently well-developed and receiving the required

management attention? To what extent do these critical competencies distinguish your company from the competition at present? Reflection: To what extent have you identified your critical processes and to what extent do you think they are well prepared to support your value proposition? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent do you feel that you have a clear and complete view on your business

processes (I mean, clear and complete in your mind, the quality-binder with flowcharts in your drawer is less important here)? In the light of your value proposition, which do you think are the more critical processes for the company's success, in other words, which ones are more important for creating and maintaining competitive advantage (resulting in lower costs and/or better quality and/or more flexibility and/or innovation)?

To what extent do you think that these critical processes in their current design are welldeveloped to fulfil the promise to the client? To what extent do you think that they could be further improved, for example by reducing complexity (e.g. how many departments are involved in each of them and can this number potentially be reduced, how many steps are there in each process and can this number potentially be reduced, etc.)? To what extent do you think these processes receive the

required management attention and resources? 3. Completing the team: having the "right" mix of resources Reflection: On the basis of your value proposition and your critical competencies, to what extent do you believe that your current staff can really contribute to the delivery of your value proposition? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent have you identified the key critical

positions in your organisation, in the light of your value proposition? To what extent do you feel that all key positions are staffed with people best prepared for the job? To what extent have you got a back-up plan in place for these key positions? Which important gaps do you see in terms of completeness of the team? Reflection: To what extent are the candidates for my key specialist

functions recruited by people with a deep functional understanding about the job itself and the role it has within the big picture?
Please note: when I talk about key specialist functions, this could also include higher-level management functions of areas for which practical experience in some very specific subjects is a big advantage.

Question that can help with the reflection: To what extent are job-specific knowledge and/or experience present at the various stages of the search and selection process?

4. On and around the field: creating the "right" environment Reflection: To what extent do you think your operations infrastructure (offices, technology & systems) create the environment which is fit for enabling your people in the best possible way to comply with the promises you make to your clients? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent do you consider that the physical design & infrastructure of the office actually supports the work that

needs to be done in it (number of desks, amount of background noise from outside or colleagues, number of meeting rooms with adequate telecomfacilities, number of "project war-rooms" with large whiteboards and sufficient markers, network speed, etc.)? To what extent do you think that the way your offices or manufacturing plant look, reflects your value proposition (for example, if you promise high quality products or a very high degree of efficiency to your clients, do your facilities look

clean, well-organised. If you offer a lot of creativity and a bit of "craziness", does your office also look a bit crazy)? To what extent do you have a clear view on whether people are happy with the environment in which they work? What have you done recently to help create the appropriate working climate (listened to staff complaints and/or suggestions, finally modernised the canteen, placed some plants )? And, did it work? Why not?

Preparing a game
1. Playing style and ambition level: explaining objectives Reflection: To what extent do you think your strategy and value proposition are clear to all of your staff and to what extent do you think they understand that they themselves are also a vital part of getting there? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent do you have your strategy and value proposition published explicitly?

To what extent do you think that your people are able to relate these strategic statements to the practical issues of their daily work? To what extent do you think that the strategy is "alive" to your people (do you feel that they are enthusiastic about it, do they share the vision)? What have you done recently to "spread the word" to your own people and how effective do you think that has been? Are you sure? How do you know?

To what extent do you think your people understand how their own activities fit in the big picture? 2. Showing the way: leadership and walking the talk Reflection: How many shining eyes do I have around me? And in the case the answer is "well, not too many, really", then: Reflection: Who am I being that the eyes of the people around me are not shining?

3. Training for the perfect pass: establishing alignment Reflection: To what extent do you consider your operations and marketing & sales areas to be wellaligned, over the long-, medium- and short-term? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent are structural communication mechanisms in place between these departments and which ones of these are based on personal contact rather than emails or

orders placed in the system? To what extent do you consider that structured, personalised alignment is in place with long term perspective (e.g. 12-36 month horizon changes in value proposition, new productmarket combinations, etc.), medium-term horizon (e.g. 3-18 month new product introductions, promotional campaigns etc.) and short-term horizon (e.g. 0-4 months prioritisation of specific orders) in which joint solutions are developed or mutual agreement is achieved and where the

"technical" fit between the promises in the market and operational capabilities are secured? To what extent are different levels of the organisation involved in these communications? Would you consider the focus of communication between the people of the different departments to be problemoriented or solution-oriented? To what extent do you consider that people show the appropriate willingness to

listen? When was the last time you asked Marketing & Sales managers about what they think of Operations and Supply Chain? And the other way around? To what extent did the answers make you feel comfortable? Really? Reflection: To what extent do you consider that the bonus schemes in your companies stimulate collaboration or improve alignment? Questions that can help with the reflection:

To what extent are targets in the bonus schemes in your company individual or global? To what extent do you think that some of the individual targets promote interests which are opposed to targets of another individual? How do you believe that these potential conflicts manifest themselves in your company or ultimately in your company's results? To what extent do you believe that the managers in your company consider the global targets in their bonus scheme to be related to their own area of

influence? To what extent do you consider that managers would be encouraged by their targets to seek collaboration with their peers in order to coordinate between them? 4. Training for technique: skills and competencies Reflection: To what extent do you think that the training your people have had has been beneficial for the company? Questions that can help with the

reflection: To what extent is there a clear relation between the courses people follow and the fulfilment of their part in delivering the company's value proposition? To what extent is training followed up by the manager of a person who has attended a course, in order to define specific actions in which the obtained knowledge, experience or skills can be directly applied? 5. Training for consistency: reliable

quality Reflection: To what extent does your quality management system support your business and as such justify the efforts put into creating and maintaining it? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent do you find direct links between your quality management system and your value proposition? To what degree do you think that the people involved in the quality management system

spend their time mainly on generating documents? And to what degree on making sure that these documents are being used effectively? To what extent do you see departmental managers really interested and/or actively involved in the development, usage and/or maintenance of the quality management system? Why not? 6. Training for new tricks and patterns: innovation Reflection: To what extent do you

stimulate new initiatives, innovation and continuous improvement throughout the whole organisation as part of your overall strategy? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent are innovation and continuous improvement actively pursued in the company? To what extent can you say that everyone in the organisation feels part of the responsibility for improving continuously (where did the majority of ideas

come from and who followed up on them)? To what extent are you happy with the number of improvement ideas that have been generated during the last year? To what extent have these improvement ideas brought you any closer to reaching the company objectives? Why not?

Game-time!
Reflection: To what extent do you think your managers actually manage?

Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent do you think your managers focus on getting their departments and their people forward? To what extent do you think that your managers give their people room for making autonomous decisions instead of simply telling them what to do? To what extent do you think that your managers intervene with their people's actions, correcting them, instead of preparing them to do a better job?

Post-game evaluation and adjustments to tactics

Reflection: To what extent do you feel that you have a complete overview of how well your business is performing now and how likely it is that it will continue in the same way and/or improve/deteriorate? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent do you have a regularly updated view of your financial status, i.e. not only invoicing or profit, but also e.g. cash flow or cost of money tied

up in inventories? To what extent do you have a regularly updated view of customer satisfaction, not only based on e.g. contractually agreed indicators, but also opinions "from the field"? To what extent do you have a regularly updated view of internal operations, not only cost & efficiency in manufacturing & distribution, but also the state of affairs in e.g. marketing & sales or R&D or the interfaces between departments? To what extent do you have a

regularly updated view of how you are preparing yourself for the future, not only of compliance with the planned training hours, but also e.g. if best practices are being shared or improvement ideas from the work floor are being stimulated actively? To what extent do you feel that your indicators are SMART? To what extent do you feel that the effort spent on preparing indicators is justified by the quality of the insights you get out of them?

Reflection: To what extent do you think you and your people stick to the defined strategy and value proposition in a consistent way? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent does the impression that new customers have about your company coincide with your "official" value proposition? To what extent do you see "conflicts" in operational details between for example operations and marketing & sales after new

deals have been closed? To what extent do you frequently have urgent or off-spec orders, i.e. which go beyond the "standard" product or service definition? Reflection: On the basis of which criteria do you prioritise and decide to approve an improvement project? Questions that can help with the reflection: To what extent is the business trigger of each project clear? This would be the "why?" of the project, what would be the

consequences if we didn't do anything about the issue? To what extent is the size of the problem clear? To what extent is it clear how the project relates to our value proposition? To what extent do you have a clear view on the objectives of the project (push for quantification, target values of some kind) and to what extent do you have a clear view on the expected costs and benefits (if possible quantified in money)?

Appendix 3: Recommended reading and viewing

My personal sources of inspiration, most of them clearly related to the topics of this book: My favourite TEDtalks (can be viewed at: www.TED.com), for example: Ken Robinson, on our wrong ideas about

education Ben Zander, on passion and leadership, classical music and shining eyes Itay Talgam, on orchestra conductors and leadership styles Alain de Botton, ambition and success on

Richard St. John, on the fact that success isn't a 1way street Hans Rosling, visualisation on data

Rory Sutherland, on strategy not only being about big things Taylor Mali, a beautiful poem on "what teachers make" Simon Sinek, about why people buy something (products, ideas, visions, ) Nigel Marsh, about worklife balance Malcolm Gladwell, about spaghetti-sauce and positioning

Seth Godin, about purple cows and things which are "broken" GOLDRATT, Eliyahu and Jeff COX, "The goal", the original business novel on bottleneck thinking, a great confirmation that operations can be exciting JOHNSON, Spencer, "Who moved my cheese?", Change is always and everywhere, Panta Rhei for the 21st century FINE, Charles, "Clockspeed", on the temporary nature of competitive advantage and "industrial fruitflies"

DRUCKER, Peter F., e.g. "Classic Drucker", great vision and above all, a lot of common sense FRIEDMAN, Thomas, "The world is flat". Despite all the criticism about being nonscientific, biased and based only on interviews with friends, still for me one of the more interesting books on Globalisation 101, especially when followed by the reading of: STIGLITZ, Joseph: "Making globalisation work", make ones vision on globalisation more

complete My other recommended titles (can all be Googled easily): Operations content & SCM-related

SIMCHI-LEVI, David, "Operations Rules; delivering customer value through flexible operations" CHRISTOPHER, Martin, "Logistics and Supply Chain Management" BLANCHARD, David,

"Supply chain management, best practices" EMMETT, Stuart & Vivek SOOD, "Green Supply Chains" DOUGHERTY, John & Christopher GRAY, "Sales & Operations Planning" FISHER, Marshall & Ananth RAMAN, "The new science of retailing" SLONE, Reuben, DITTMAN, J. Paul and John T. MENTZER, "The new supply chain agenda"

For service environments NORMANN, Richard, "Service management" SCHMITT, Bernd H., "Customer Experience Management" For the interested more technically

SILVER, Edward A., PETERSON, Rein and David F. PYKE, "Inventory management and Production Planning and Scheduling"

SIMCHI-LEVI, David, KAMINSKY, Philip and Edith SIMCHI-LEVI, "Designing and managing the supply chain" KAPLAN, Robert S, and David NORTON, "The execution premium"

Appendix 4: Sales & Operations Planning

(From the web-site of T.F. Wallace, author of various textbooks on S&OP, www.tfwallace.com).

What is S&OP
Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) is a set of decision-making processes to balance demand and supply, to integrate financial planning and operational

planning, and to link high level strategic plans with day-to-day operations.

Why Do Companies Use S&OP?

Many companies have difficulty in establishing valid game plans for sales, production, procurement, and inventory levels -- and then tying them to day-today scheduling and execution. As a result, performance suffers: customer service is poor, production and procurement are inefficient, inventories are too high or too low, or all of the above. Sales & Operations Planning has

emerged as an essential management tool in this age of rapid change, increasingly demanding customers, and supply chains that extend half a world away. It's rightfully been called "top management's handle on the business."

What is Executive S&OP?

Executive S&OP is top management's part of the overall set of Sales & Operations Planning processes. It's a tool that enables the top management team to establish in advance the desired levels of customer service, inventory investment, and customer order backlogs and then manage the business

proactively to achieve those targets. An important point: Executive S&OP, which focuses on aggregate volumes, is essential to gain the maximum benefits from the other parts of Sales & Operations Planning, the ones that address the details (Master Scheduling, Plant and Supplier Scheduling, Distribution, and other types of detailed planning and coordination). The results from the monthly Executive S&OP process drive downward to impact directly the day-to-day activities in Sales, Purchasing, Production, and Distribution - and also drive upward, so that the company's Financial Plans can reflect current realities and future

operational plans.

What are the Benefits of Using S&OP?

"Hard" benefits -- ones that can be readily measured include higher customer service, lower finished goods inventories, more stable production rates, faster and more controlled new product introductions, reduced obsolescence, shorter customer lead times for make-to-order products. "Soft" benefits resulting from Executive S&OP include enhanced teamwork in the executive group and elsewhere,

improved communications, better decisions and better financial plans with less effort, one set of numbers, in both units and dollars, with which to run the business, a tight linkage between strategic plans and day-to-day activities, a "window into the future".

What Does it Cost?

In contrast to these sizeable benefits, the costs to implement Executive S&OP are small. The primary "costs" in making the process work are not financial, but are in people's time and energy.

Eight Elementary Errors About S&OP

The following is a list of "deal breakers" things that can get in the way of successful implementation. To ensure success, you'll need to eliminate these myths in order to get all the key people on the same page. Myth #1: "We don't need S&OP in our department; that's a supply chain thing.'" Reality: Yes, it is a supply chain thing and a sales & marketing thing and a manufacturing thing and a finance thing and an R&D thing and, last but not

least, it's a top management thing. S&OP is a company-wide, collaborative decision-making process, reaching up to the top levels in the business. Myth #2: "We'll never get S&OP to work we don't have enough teamwork. Reality: You've got it backwards. S&OP doesn't require teamwork before you get started; S&OP engenders teamwork once it's operating properly. It enables people to view the business holistically and thus see the other guys' problems. A company implementing S&OP and not getting improved teamwork means just one thing: they didn't do it right.

Myth #3: "We don't need S&OP; we're doing Lean Manufacturing." Reality: S&OP and Lean are two very different things. S&OP is a medium-tolong term planning tool that provides visibility into the future, thereby avoiding surprises when demand shifts up or down. People who know both S&OP and Lean say, "They work best when they work together." Myth #4: "S&OP is too rigid. It won't work for us because our business changes too quickly." Reality: S&OP is all about change. It provides a "window into the future", so

that companies can 1) see potential problems ahead of time 2) take corrective action and 3) thus prevent potential problems from becoming a real ones. Myth #5: "We can't use S&OP because we are don't have any manufacturing. We use contract manufacturers solely." Reality: S&OP doesn't care who owns the factory. Actually, companies heavily outsourced probably need it more, because they generally have less control over the supply side of the business. We also see S&OP being used in banks, retail companies, engineering

organizations, and IT. Myth #6: We're a large company. I think we're too big for S&OP. Reality: Are you bigger than Microsoft for example? Or bigger than Procter & Gamble? We see these companies, and a growing number of others, using S&OP very successfully in their operating businesses. Further, in these companies, the results from the operating units' S&OP processes are rolled up, communicated to the corporate CEO, and form a key component of the corporation's earnings calls to Wall Street.

Myth #7: "We have to get our forecasts a lot better before we think about S&OP." Reality: Here again you've got it backwards. Almost always, implementing S&OP helps to improve the forecasts. One reason for that is, for the first time, people start to view forecasting as a process rather than a pain in the neck. They see that it plays a vital role in the overall S&OP process and hence they see it as much more important than before. Myth #8: " S&OP is really simple. We're just going to get the spreadsheets working and then we'll

have S&OP." Reality: The spreadsheets, graphs, and the data they contain are necessary, but not the most important elements. Of greater significance are the mindsets of the people who will be using it all the way up to the president. Implementing S&OP successfully is largely a matter of change management. It is people intensive, and that's where the emphasis needs to be during implementation.

Appendix 5: "Doing without doing"

There is a wonderful TEDTalk by Israeli conductor Itay Talgam in which he discusses different management styles using examples of some of the great conductors of 20th-century musical history to show how different styles of control manifest themselves and what the perspective of the orchestra can be when confronted with these different styles. Just replace "conductor" by "manager" and the relevance and accuracy of the

talk becomes clear at once. The last video he shows during the talk is of Leonard Bernstein conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker in a symphony by Haydn, and Bernstein is conducting without moving, arms crossed, simply looking at the orchestra and the individual players. Totally in control, but without physically or verbally doing anything. Doing without doing. And with a beautiful result. www.TED.com Itay Talgam

Appendix 6: Balanced Score Card

Norton & Kaplan in their classic article "The Balanced Scorecard measures that drive performance" (Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb 1992), proposed a set of key performance indicators "like the dials in an airplane cockpit: it gives manager complex information at a glance". In order to not only have a clear view on the results but also on the "how and why?" behind it, they distinguish indicators in 4

categories: Finance: how do we look to shareholders? Customer: how do customers see us? Internal processes: what must we excel at? Innovation and learning: can we continue to improve and create value?

Appendix 7: SMART indicators

S = Simple: meaning for instance that the naming of the indicator, as well as the formula to calculate it should be clear and understandable to the users. If not, people might simply not trust the outcome, because they don't have a grip on the underlying concepts. M = Measurable: meaning that it should be possible to capture the concept in a number, a percentage or a value (e.g.

yes-no). A = Acceptable: meaning that the audience for which the indicator is intended accepts it as being representative for what it is supposed to measure. R = Realistic: meaning that the target value should be within reach. If not, it is very likely to only have demotivation as a result, instead of stimulating people to reach the objective. T = Time-constrained: meaning that there should be a deadline of some kind, otherwise people will lose interest or they will say "we will reach it someday".

Appendix 8: About the author

Ed has worked as an independent freelance consultant since the beginning of 2004, specializing in Business Strategy, Supply Chain and Logistics consulting & training. He is also a lecturer on Operations, Logistics & Supply Chain Management at EADA Business School in Barcelona, Spain, which is ranked as one of the world's TOP-100 business schools by prestigious rankings such as Financial

Times and Economist. With an M.Sc. degree in business administration from Erasmus University / Rotterdam School of Management and a post-graduate degree in Supply Chain Management from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, Ed has extensive international experience in managing a wide diversity of projects. He has a practical background since the mid-1990's in the logistics world, having worked in various areas within logistics operator DHL / Danzas Solutions. First as Director Supply Chain Design, supporting large accounts with the redesign of their distribution networks at strategic, multi-national

level. Later as Director of Engineering & Quality in a large operation in Spain and most recently, as International project manager carrying out productivity improvement projects in various European countries. As a consultant he works in Distribution Network Design & carbon footprint, transportation strategy & management, Re-location studies, Logistics outsourcing & tendering, Supply Chain strategy & management, Operations strategy and Operational & productivity improvement. So far, Ed has been actively involved in projects in industry sectors, like Fast

Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), High-tech & telecom, Electronics & white-goods, Automotive, Steel, Fashion, Pharma, Aerospace, Industrial. His in-company training activities have been in sectors such as Apparel & sports, Lighting, Motorcycles, Cork, Services to the chemical industry, Engineering, water taps manufacturing, wind-energy and call-centres. He is also certified trainer in the business simulations of Palatine Group from New York, USA (Project management) and The Fresh Connection of the Netherlands (value chain). He has developed and run projects and training for clients like Nike, Samsung,

DHL, Bestin Supply Chain, Shell, Alcon, Wyeth, Mlnlycke Healthcare, Vestas, Sellbytel, Volkswagen Group, Volvo, Makro, JohnsonDiversey, Groenewout Consultants & Engineers, Europhia Consulting and others. Ed speaks Dutch (native language), English, German, Spanish and a bit of French. More info at www.QuSL.com.