CHAPTER 6Scorecards are increasingly used as tools for visualizing strategy: communicating strategies as part of control, but also developing and articulating strategies. They help in structuring strategy discussions and deriving concrete targets for all parts of the organization. By providing links to higher-level strategies and aims, they help the entire organization to realize the underlying logic. We believe that a large part of the employees, probably the majority, should know about the scorecards and take part in dialogues about them (see our next chapter). Otherwise measuring and monitoring the new metrics will be perceived as a meaningless ritual, a burden or even a threat. Only through involving people in discussions about the intended logic, and how the metrics relate to it, will everyone start taking an interest in the measures. The need to bridge strategy and control was one of the original reasons for creating BSC. In Chapter 1 we connected this to the growing importance of intangibles for corporate success. Closely linked to this is the ambition to explain strategy to almost everyone in the organization. More people are empowered to make their own interpretation of upcoming situations. In order to act quickly in ways that are desirable for the entire organization, they need to comprehend the needs and possibilities of new situations in terms of the intended strategy. This understanding will only occur if people have been involved in discussing strategy, contributing to developing it for their own unit, and having memory-friendly tools at their disposal for remembering strategic intentions, and recognizing how they are met. Strategy maps fulfill several purposes:
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Chapter 1 