Business Corner
STRATEGIES & ANALYSIS
BY IRA S. MILLER
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
IRACHEMARK@CHEMARK.COM
Corporate governance: A blueprint
for managing a business
What do CEOs do when they get to work? After all, there’s no one to hold them accountable on a day-to-day basis; they can do anything they think is
appropriate.
For some leaders it’s the day’s “to do list”
they tackle first. Others jump into the current day’s firefighting. Or there might not be
a plan at all. They just see what pops up.
Many of the CEOs I’ve talked to and worked
with use a version of one of these approaches. At
the end of the day they may feel they have contributed, or wind up exhausted with little to show
for their effort. There’s no consistency in moving
a company forward, yet all are dedicated.
What’s missing is an overall game plan within
which the CEO’s responsibilities can be executed;
a game plan that creates a high probability that
the company’s goals will be achieved.
I call this game plan Corporate Governance. It
contains a series of five connected events: setting
strategy; budgeting; operating plans; corporate
initiative; and quarterly reviews.
The cycle combines planning, forecasting,
understanding variances, and a relentless drive
for improvements. Most importantly it demands
thinking and communicating. These are two
leadership activities that arebecoming obsolete
as leaders are more likely to react and transmit
messages instead.
The cycle is more easily understood by starting
with setting strategy even though this occurs in
the second quarter in the graph on the next page.
These first three elements of the Corporate
Governance cycle are the planning elements.
Using the
Corporate
Governance
Cycle to run a
more efficient
business.
SETTING STRATEGY
Commonly called strategic planning, this is the
time when each business contemplates its
future over a planning timeframe, which is very
different depending on the business (high-tech
2-3 years, manufacturing 4-6 years, power gen-
eration 10+ years).
