Lots of Work, but No Results

Co-authored by Alexey Yarkov

We were invited to Company X by a mutual acquaintance. The business owner was deeply concerned about the company’s declining performance metrics over the past four quarters. While market trends showed stagnation, their closest competitors, although slow and volatile, demonstrated steady and confident growth on average.

At the company’s monthly directors' meeting, each department presented polished slides about the work they had accomplished. Every team and division focused their efforts on key performance indicators tied to strategic goals, aiming to "break" the negative trend. The presentations were centered around metrics like the number of sales, revenue, and average transaction value. By the end of these meetings, participants usually left feeling reassured and confident that things were moving in the right direction.

However, month after month, the business owner saw no improvement or positive momentum in revenue figures.

What’s Going Wrong?

• Lack of alignment across departments.

Each department set its own goals without synchronizing with the goals of other departments. This resulted in conflicting company-wide objectives, which ultimately neutralized each other’s outcomes.

• Departments working in silos.

Each department focused solely on its own KPIs, often perceiving other functions as competitors. This increased division among functional teams (departments) and led to internal battles for resources.

• No unified, systemic view of how departments contribute to customer value.

The company lacked a clear understanding of how all departments and teams collectively created core value for customers. This not only exacerbated the issues in point 1 but also led to excessive work, numerous projects, and resource consumption with minimal overall impact.

What Can Be Done?

• Map primary and secondary processes.

Create a single visual map of the company’s core and supporting processes (e.g., Porter’s Value Chain or the APQC framework) to gain an overarching view. Identify which processes generate profit (primary) and which are cost drivers (secondary). Use this map as a guide to prioritize strategic initiatives and projects.

• Develop a decomposed goals map (strategic map).

Build a framework that integrates all departments into a unified field. This ensures that contradictions between goals are identified and resolved before projects and initiatives begin.

• Create a decomposed KPI map.

Complement the strategic map with a KPI map to align every metric with the company’s overarching goals.

• Shift the focus from effort to results.

Reframe presentations about completed work to focus on results that reflect the achievement of strategic goals outlined in point 3.

Conclusions

For companies accustomed to operating in a state of constant market uncertainty, adaptability and flexibility must be top priorities. At the same time, understanding company goals—both at the top management level and for each individual contributor—is fundamental.

A strategic map of goals and KPIs helps visualize where the company as a whole is headed. It’s also critical to maintain a focus on which processes are primary and which are secondary. Prioritizing investment and development in primary processes is what drives competitive advantages in the market.