C&C Manager: “Where are your strategic measures then?”
ST Manager: [pointing at a control chart] “Here. This is our most important measure, our measure of purpose. This is how we know how well we are doing.”
C&C Manager: “No, you’ve shown me that before, when you showed me the measures used in the daily team meetings by your operational staff. I want to know what the key strategic measures are.”
ST Manager: “That one there. It’s the same one.”
C&C Manager: “One of you is looking at wrong measure then surely. Strategic issues are not the same as purely operational concerns. To take a strategic overview needs a wider perspective than managing day-to-day concerns.”
ST Manager: “That is a measure of our purpose. What we exist to do. What could be more strategic than what we are here for? If you are asking why i use the same measure as my team, i would say, we tried having different measures that monitored what we do in our different tasks. That was one of our problems. Then we learned that measures come from purpose. If we had different measures, then we had manufactured different purposes for ourselves. Why would we all have different purposes? We don’t now. We all have the same purpose, and do different jobs to help us all achieve that purpose. If strategy is purpose, then strategy is in our operations. Everyone is strategic.”
