Mark Rome

Hi, I'm Mark Rome. Growing up in a family of twelve I learned early on how to listen. Everyone has a story to tell. Throughout my career in finance and accounting leadership, I've learned how to listen to the executive leadership team, to customers, to suppliers, and to each and every employee supporting the company' mission.

Within every organization, decision making drives performance. Every employee comes to work every day and makes decisions that impact performance. These decisions, at every level of the organization, define the corporate culture, and drive performance.

In 2008, Harvard Business School Professor Robert S. Kaplan and his Palladium Group colleague David P. Norton wrote The Execution Premium: Linking Strategy to Operations for Competitive Advantage. They outline six stages in their management system:

1. Develop the strategy
2. Plan the strategy
3. Align the organization
4. Plan operations
5. Monitor and learn
6. Test and adapt

Using Kaplan and Norton's work as a guide, a proactive leadership team can follow a process to execute their strategy.

Step 1: Visualize the strategy.
Step 2: Communicate strategy.
Step 3: Identify strategic projects.
Step 4: Align projects with strategy.
Step 5: Align individual roles and provide incentives.
Step 6: Manage projects.
Step 7: Make decisions.
Step 8: Measure the strategy.
Step 9: Report progress.
Step 10: Reward performance.

An essential role of leadership is to acquire data on how well individual roles align with corporate goals and strategy, and design incentives that encourage and reward performance, while enforcing compliance will applicable laws, rules and regulations.

With the right tools and the right data, leaders can better understand the workforce to align the culture (decision making) with corporate goals and drive performance, including:
1) Effective policy management (utilizing an online policy library)
2) Employee assessment surveys
3) Performance Scorecards
4) Event management and reporting
5) Annual certificates to a Code of Conduct