NEW YORK, July 8, 2005 – The Marakon-authored article "Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance" appears as one of the lead features in the July/August Harvard Business Review, a special double issue devoted to "the high-performance organization."

Based on research conducted by Marakon and the Economist Intelligence Unit, Marakon’s Michael Mankins and Richard Steele reveal that companies typically deliver only 63% of their strategies’ financial performance potential. The authors draw on their experience with high-performing companies like Barclays, Boeing, Dow Chemical and Roche to advocate seven simple rules for setting and delivering strategy:

• Keep it simple, make it concrete. Avoid long, drawn-out descriptions of lofty goals and instead stick to clear language describing what your company will and won't do.
  
• Debate assumptions, not forecasts. Create cross-functional teams drawn from strategy, marketing, and finance to ensure the assumptions underlying your long-term plans reflect both the real economics of your company's markets and its actual performance relative to competitors.
  
• Use a rigorous analytic framework. Ensure that the dialogue between the corporate center and the business units about market trends and assumptions is conducted within a rigorous framework, such as that of "profit pools."
  
• Discuss resource deployments early. Create more realistic forecasts and more executable plans by discussing up front the level and timing of critical deployments.
  
• Clearly identify priorities. Prioritize tactics so that employees have a clear sense of where to direct their efforts.
  
• Continuously monitor performance. Track resource deployment and results against plan, using continuous feedback to reset assumptions and reallocate resources.
  
• Reward and develop execution capabilities. Motivate and develop staff.

Mankins, a regional managing partner for North America, writes frequently on top management issues and is a co-author of The Value Imperative (Free Press, 1994). Based in San Francisco, he has worked in numerous industries, including technology, aerospace, chemicals, manufacturing, petroleum and financial services. Last September, his article on executive team decision-making, "Stop Wasting Valuable Time," was the lead feature in Harvard Business Review – and one of its most widely read articles of 2004. His ideas have also appeared in the Harvard Management Update, the Financial Times, Corporate Board Member, Chief Executive, Financial Executive and the Journal of Business Strategy.

Steele, a New York-based partner, also writes frequently and has worked primarily in consumer-facing industries such as fast-moving consumer goods and retail, but also in pharmaceuticals, media, consumer banking and energy services. Last year, he coauthored a feature for the MIT Sloan Management Review entitled "Games Managers Play at Budget Time" that was one of its highest-selling reprints for the year. He has been quoted in a variety of print and online outlets, including the Financial Times, INSEAD Knowledge and CFO.com.

For further information, contact David Fondiller at +1 212 377-5016 or dfondiller@marakon.com.

About Marakon Associates:
Marakon Associates is a strategy and management consulting firm that works with some of the world’s best-known companies on the issues that most drive their performance and long-term value. The Economist has called it "a consultancy that has advised some of the world’s most consistently successful companies." Marakon has offices in New York, London, Singapore, Chicago and San Francisco.