Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices

Peter F. Drucker · 1973

Enterprise performance management is not merely dashboards and financial reporting but the integration of multiple managerial methodologies—spiced with predictive analytics and risk management—that enables organizations to execute (not just formulate) strategy and create sustained value.

Gary Cokins argues that most organizations are 'over-managed but under-led,' able to formulate strategy but failing to execute it. In this conversational, example-rich compilation, he demolishes the narrow view that performance management equals scorecards plus budgeting and instead presents it as an umbrella framework integrating strategy maps, balanced scorecards, activity-based costing, customer value management, rolling forecasts, enterprise risk management, human capital analytics, and predictive analytics—all mounted on a common business-intelligence platform. The payoff is an organization that can anticipate, react, and respond faster and smarter, aligning employee behavior with strategy, understanding which customers and products truly earn money, and converting potential value into realized shareholder wealth. Whether you are a newcomer or a seasoned practitioner, the book shows not just what and why, but how—including how to overcome the human resistance to change that dooms most implementations.

The model it argues

A causal framework in which design levers (integrated methodologies, analytics, leadership) and contextual conditions drive psychological and behavioral states (strategic alignment, employee buy-in, decision quality) that produce outcome metrics (profitable customer value and shareholder wealth creation). Central thesis: shareholder wealth is a result, not a goal, achieved by integrating methodologies, aligning behavior with strategy, and infusing analytics and risk management.

Key ideas

Integration of Managerial Methodologies: The degree to which multiple improvement methodologies are unified, interconnected, synchronized, and mounted on a common information platform rather than operated in isolated silos.
Use of Predictive Analytics: The extent to which the organization applies forward-looking analytics—correlation, segmentation, forecasting, what-if scenarios, optimization—to move from reactive control to anticipatory planning.
Managerial Accounting Cost Accuracy: The degree to which resource expenses are traced to products, channels, and customers via cause-and-effect drivers (ABC) rather than arbitrary broad-average allocations, yielding accurate, transparent cost and profit visibility.
Leadership Vision and Strategy Communication: The extent to which executives set direction, communicate strategy clearly, inspire and empower employees, foster trust and dissent tolerance, and lead change rather than merely manage complexity.
Behavioral Change Management: The organization's deliberate effort to alter employee attitudes and behavior—through communication planning, involvement, and buy-in—to overcome natural resistance to change.
Enterprise Risk Management Maturity: The degree to which the organization systematically identifies, quantifies, and manages risks—matching exposure to appetite across strategic, operational, financial, and hazard categories—and integrates risk with performance management.
External Uncertainty and Volatility: The contextual condition of rapid change, competitive pressure, commoditization, and market volatility that makes long-cycle planning unsuitable and raises the stakes for responsiveness.
Strategic Alignment of Work and Priorities: The degree to which employees' behavior, priorities, projects, and resources are aligned with executive strategic objectives, such that individuals understand how their work contributes to strategy.