Yet, when we consider the issue of how to measure strategic performance, we find that it receives little attention. For instance, if you look up 'performance', measurement' or ‘success’ in most texts, you will find they are not listed in the index or in the tides within chapters. If you examine research articles that investigate 'performance', you will find that the definitions of performance vary greatly and that most articles have a number of performance measures, each of which gives conflicting findings. If you ask managers what they mean by ‘performance’, you will get a similarly varying set of responses.
It seems that the critical outcome measure that is used to assess the 'success' of strategy performance is not understood and certainly not agreed! In this chapter, we examine a variety of approaches taken to measuring strategic organisation performance, and provide frameworks for discovering the set of variables that is appropriate for each particular organisation and its situation. We discuss how to develop a strategy map to link performance indicators to the business strategy. We then discuss some of the specific measures that are used,how to compare the measurements in order to assess performance, how to communicate those findings and the traps used in communicating these measurements traps that easily lead to misperceptions even when the facts are given. Finally, we provide a summary of the major research studies that have been used to try to identify ’successful' organisations and to link this back to measuring strategic performance.