Thought Leadership

According to commentators such as Elise Bauer, a distinguishing characteristic of a thought leader is "the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates."[2]

Leadership is deliberately causing people-driven actions in a planned way to accomplish the leaders agenda. Phil Cosby[3]

http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/cbp 
 

Centre for Business Performance Aims
The Centre for Business Performance (CBP) brings together leading edge academic research with practical tools and extensive experience from collaborating closely with industry. This blend of theoretical rigorous research and practical application has placed CBP at the forefront of performance measurement and management.

Context
The CBP provides thought leadership in the area of performance measurement and management.

Thought Leadership Research
What do we mean by thought leadership? Thought leadership has to meet three rigorous criteria. It has to make a worthwhile contribution to theory; to the development of tools to aid managers directly; and to establishing best practice in that area. In this way the CBP remains at the leading edge of its discipline. The CBP has been a leading force in performance measurement for more than a decade. Our research builds on our deep knowledge and experience in this area. It is grouped around a number of areas of expertise:

• Measuring intangible assets
• PM in the public sector
• Predictive performance
• PM and planning and budgeting
• PM and IT systems
• PM and rewards
• Target setting
• Dynamic systems
• State of the art
• Theoretical foundations in PM
• Frameworks

All our research activity tackles one of the four main research challenges in performance measurement and management. These are:

• The design of performance measurement systems
• The implementation of performance measurement systems
• The management of organisations using measurement systems, and
• The evolution of performance measurement systems.

We also have an ongoing stream of work exploring the impact that measurement systems have on organisations. Maximising the benefits of performance measurement can be a daunting task, so CBP have created a series of workshops and conferences to help directors and managers design, implement and manage performance measurement systems. Using tools and techniques crafted over the past ten years and honed in practice, the programmes cover high level overviews through to a four day design and implementation programme and specific individual workshops.

Tools and Techniques
CBP has developed and tested a series of tools and techniques to help directors, managers and consultants:

The Performance Prism - a multi-stakeholder performance measurement framework that guides performance measurement design in outward looking businesses and public sector organisations
The Performance Measurement Record Sheet - a template for designing appropriate performance measures especially useful for the softer areas such as customer loyalty and employee satisfaction The Catalogue of Measures - a comprehensive catalogue of measures to help companies in their measurement quest
Implementation Pre-Assessment - a tool for gauging the probability of success prior to embarking on an expensive performance measurement project
The Performance Planning Value Chain - a framework for managing through measures
The Performance Dash Board - a software supported tool for displaying and communicating performance.

These tools and techniques were all developed from a theoretical base but are heavily rooted in practice having been perfected through extensive testing and use. Both CBP's publicly offered workshops and tailored incompany development programmes draw heavily on the use of tools and techniques. The tools allow a process approach to performance measurement giving managers a structure to work from whilst allowing them the freedom to create tailored solutions for use in their own organisations.