Truly great companies know their critical success factors (CSFs) and communicate these to their staff (Drucker called these key performance areas). Yet many organizations have not distinguished their critical success factors from the myriad success factors. Teams are thus often travelling in a direction very different from the intended path.

As Exhibit 1 shows even though an organisation has a strategy teams are often working in directions very different to the intended course. However if staff know what the organization’s CSFs are they will be able to align their daily activities closer to the strategic direction of the organisation as shown in Exhibit 2.

If you get the CSFs right it is very easy to find your winning KPIs e.g., once the ‘timely arrival and departure of planes’ CSF was identified it was relatively easy to find the KPI – ‘planes over 2 hours late’ for a well known airline.

You may wish to access my white paper on “Finding your organizations’ CSF”.

You may also wish to read my whitepaper on critical success factors, this paper can be purchased from my website.