Look Outside Your Firm: A Tool to Sense What's Coming

For decades, management systems such as the Balanced Scorecard have existed to help managers analyze information on their internal performance. While useful for aligning strategy, different tools are needed to focus managers' attention on the external environment -- for it is there where the real opportunities and threats lie. This article begins by exploring how changes in the landscape create winners and losers. Then, the authors outline the need for a management system that senses the environment, what they call the Landscape Monitor. Their framework works by opening more windows on the world, not just one window at the top. As everyone in the organization is empowered to observe, monitor, assess and comment on information, insights start to move bottom up and top down at the same speed as the world changes. Managers are able to see farther and earlier what's coming, so they can be innovation leaders and not get left behind.