Michael C. Mankins > Quotes

“Our research suggests that companies on average deliver only 63% of the financial performance their strategies promise.”
― Michael C. Mankins, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy

“Companies that create tight links between their strategies, their plans, and, ultimately, their performance often experience a cultural multiplier effect. Over time, as they turn their strategies into great performance, leaders in these organizations become much more confident in their own capabilities and much more willing to make the stretch commitments that inspire and transform large companies. In turn, individual managers who keep their commitments are rewarded—with faster progression and fatter paychecks—reinforcing the behaviors needed to drive any company forward. Eventually, a culture of overperformance emerges. Investors start giving management the benefit of the doubt when it comes to bold moves and performance delivery. The result is a performance premium on the company’s stock—one that further rewards stretch commitments and performance delivery. Before long, the company’s reputation among potential recruits rises, and a virtuous circle is created in which talent begets performance, performance begets rewards, and rewards beget even more talent. In short, closing the strategy-to-performance gap is not only a source of immediate performance improvement but also an important driver of cultural change with a large and lasting impact on the organization’s capabilities, strategies, and competitiveness. Originally”
― Michael C. Mankins, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy

“It’s all about execution”
― Michael C. Mankins, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy

“In our view, the specific framework a company uses to ground its strategic plans isn’t all that important. What is critical is that the framework establish a common language for the dialogue between the corporate center and the units—one that the strategy, marketing, and finance teams all understand and use.”
― Michael C. Mankins, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy

“a select group of high-performing companies have managed to close the strategy-to-performance gap through better planning and execution. These companies—Barclays, Cisco Systems, Dow Chemical, 3M, and Roche, to name a few—develop realistic plans that are solidly grounded in the underlying economics of their markets and then use the plans to drive execution.”
― Michael C. Mankins, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy

“High-performing companies view planning altogether differently. They want their forecasts to drive the work they actually do. To make this possible, they have to ensure that the assumptions underlying their long-term plans reflect both the real economics of their markets and the performance experience of the company relative to competitors.”
― Michael C. Mankins, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy

“avoid long, drawn-out descriptions of lofty goals and instead stick to clear language describing their course of action.”
― Michael C. Mankins, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy

“the hidden costs of bad hiring decisions are enormous, so despite the fact that we are doubling in size, we insist that as a top team we take responsibility for all hiring. The jury of your peers is the toughest judgment, so we vet each others’ potential hires and challenge each other to keep raising the bar.”
― Michael C. Mankins, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Strategy