Commitment-based Management
Commitment-based Management (CbM) is the most successful management discipline to emerge in the last four decades. CbM puts accountability and coordination at the center of producing results. It has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal and MIT Sloan Management Review among other periodicals and is currently taught in the London Business School. Now widely imitated, it was originally developed 20 years ago by Dr. Fernando Flores and a team that included some of our partners.
At the heart of CbM is the recognition that great accomplishments are driven by the commitment of individuals, teams, and organizations. Where accountabilities are weak or unclear, so are the results. Accountability, though essential, is insufficient by itself. Coordination of multiple performers—of team members, multiple teams, or multiple functions—is critical for generating significant results. CbM increases accountability and coordination by focusing attention on the quality of commitments made and on the practices for maintaining shared and coherent understandings of dynamic situations.
Paying attention to the commitment cycle is one of the practices for improving the quality of accountability and coordination.
Commitment Process Analysis and Design (CPAD) extends the principles of CbM into mapping and redesigning the network of informal commitments that make things happen in large business units and companies. It has proven extremely effective at identifying waste not normally eliminated by standard process re-engineering approaches, and it is particularly strong at realigning processes with new strategic directions.
"Commitment-based management was the foundation of our
productivity and a key part of our success at Discovery."
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—Ruth Otte
—Former President,
—The Discovery
—Channel
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"Stratam's approach significantly increases personal and organizational results by making us observers and managers of the commitments we make and of the commitment networks in which we work."
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—Dr. Peter J. Denning
—Chairman, Dept. of
—Computer Science,
—Naval Postgraduate
—School; author, The
—Invisible Future and
—Beyond Calculation
© 2007 The Stratam Group