Cascaded Reviews

Imagine how it would have been if our bodies needed our conscious attention for the basic delivery process and now think how much of your conscious attention is being given to the basic delivery process in your organisation. Cascaded reviews when implemented properly can lead to the same situation as in our bodies. However wrongly done leads to Micromanagement this is what that goes on with our bodies in the ICU’s!

In my earlier blog I had explained how the closed loop control can be introduced in the organisations. A key success factor is the intelligence that goes in through the review process. I very briefly want to reiterate what would be reviewed: Target, Accurate and traceable Actual Situation, Current Forecast, Measures for all KPIs/KRAs are what that needs to be reviewed at a frequency appropriate to the clock speed.

In life all of us want to succeed. Success not only meets the targets but also breeds further success. How can success be made systematic in nature? This is when the cascaded review comes into play. When I mean cascaded review, I mean that the lower hierarchy level must have reviewed at least twice before the respective hierarchy level reviews. Again the review is very simply done always for the Target, Accurate and traceable Actual Situation, Current Forecast, Measures for all KPIs/KRAs at an appropriate frequency with all the involved functions, so that upward value added reporting is done and not the upward delegation. Thus I believe this is the starting point to give the higher hierarchy level the confidence and thus refrain from Micromanagement. However I must caution that a certain amount of transformation, especially concerning the true capabilities in people, must take place in the entire organisation before such a cascaded review with reducing frequency can take place. Otherwise the cascaded reviews can become another wording for Micromanagement.

When correctly executed cascaded reviews frees enormous amount of management bandwidth to think and implement strategies for profitable growth, which is the most essential oxygen for any business. This can be achieved, since through the cascaded reviews the entire organisation performs delivery of products and services on its own – as if this were sub-consciously done. This is nothing different from nature where everything is cyclic and rhythmic. The other hidden benefit of cascaded review is the continuous learning in an organisation as well as empowerment with information.

I welcome you to reflect by comparing your organisation to the human body analogically and checking if all the routine tasks are being performed without conscious effort. Should this be the case the entire organisation is truly world class and would certainly boast of sustainable profitable growth over the last few years. Should this not be the case, then working on freeing the bandwidth of the top management for concentrating on strategies to achieve profitable inclusive growth can be the first step. I personally used to get very enthused whenever I reflected thus.

The last success factor is to communicate, communicate and communicate. Communicating the right ant the relevant topics is of course extremely important and should the cascaded reviews take place, the contents of the communication automatically become the most important and relevant. Apart from this just the review itself serves as a good communication medium, especially for the various functions to see the big picture and align their actions to what is important and relevant.

Happy Reflecting!!!