Page 128 - Performance Leadership

Chapter 7 Business Interfaces Drive Collaboration • 117

month, in the management report, the team would have to comment
on whether the team target was achieved.
Brewery-wide, Brasseries de Bourbon organized a meeting for all
process owners twice a year. At this meeting, all participants would have
to explain their processes, how they contributed to overall objectives,
as well as to other processes, and what they needed from other process
owners in order to be successful. Each process owner would build a lit-
tle stand and show what it was doing. In this way, the different process
owners would not only consider the needs of their process but also the
needs of other process owners.
Board members would have their own performance indicators for
the specific area they would be responsible for. They would also co-
own a few performance indicators. In order to achieve those targets,
collaboration and coaching by the other board members became a
necessity. This was done particularly to connect core processes such as
sales, purchasing, production, and logistics, with support process such
as finance, IT, and HR. For instance, the CFO owns “working capi-
tal” as a performance indicator, but co-owns “stock levels,” which was
the direct responsibility of the operations manager. This process was
cascaded down into the organization.
Brasseries de Bourbon concludes that there are a few essential pre-
conditions that make for successful implementation of business inter-
face metrics. First, it requires a strong process orientation. Second,
there needs to be strong commitment of every director to focus not only
on the business domain but also on the interfaces, in order to optimize
the performance of the organization as a whole. The targets on the
business interfaces also need to be connected to the bonus plan, so that
there is a strong incentive for collaboration. Lastly, there needs to be
an adaptive culture, in which the managers allow themselves to be
coached by one another and are willing to change their plans if cer-
tain performance indicators show failing targets, regardless if this hap-
pens within one’s own domain or someone else’s. Perhaps the most
important precondition of all is that information should not be propri-
etary and shared on a need-to-know basis. Successful collaboration
hinges strongly on transparency, which means that an open sharing of
information between the various stakeholders is paramount.