Purposely Profitable

BRETT WILLS is President, Green Enterprise Movement Inc.; Director Sustainability, HPS Inc.; and Professor, Seneca College, Toronto, Canada.

About the Author, x

Sustainability Primer, xi

Understanding sustainability, xi

The sustainable organization, xiv

Business case for sustainability, xxii

Introduction – Setting the Stage, xxvi

Chapter 1 Finding Purpose, 1

1.1 Why a purpose?, 3

1.2 Finding purpose and developing a purpose statement, 4

Step 1: Articulating the purpose, 5

Step 2: Crafting a purpose statement, 6

Step 3: Finalizing the purpose statement, 7

Chapter 2 Creating a Shared Vision of the Future, 9

2.1 Crafting a meaningful vision statement, 11

Step 1: Setting the stage, 11

Step 2: Key word development, 12

Step 3: Key word grouping, 13

Step 4: Key word identification, 13

Step 5: Drafting a vision statement, 13

Step 6: Finalizing the vision statement, 14

2.2 Creating a shared vision, 14

2.2.1 Painting a clear picture of the future state, 15

2.2.2 Aligning daily activities to the vision, 16

Chapter 3 Getting Focused – Pillar Development, 18

3.1 The power of pillars, 19

3.1.1 Providing clear direction and focus, 19

3.1.2 Creating a culture of Sustainability, 21

3.2 Building the pillars, 22

Step 1: Pillar identification, 22

Step 2: Integrating Sustainability into the pillars, 25

Step 3: Pillar key word development, 32

Step 4: Key word grouping, 35

Step 5: Developing pillar mission statements, 36

3.3 Visually illustrating the pillars, 38

Chapter 4 Financial Objectives, 41

4.1 Understanding business objectives, 42

4.2 Setting business objectives, 44

4.2.1 Setting a Revenue objective, 45

4.2.2 Setting a Gross Margin objective, 46

4.2.3 Setting an Overhead objective, 48

Chapter 5 Measuring What Matters – KPI Development, 51

5.1 Understanding KPIs and metrics, 52

5.1.1 Leading vs lagging, 53

5.1.2 Absolute vs normalized measures, 54

5.2 Pillar KPI development, 55

Step 1: Identify what needs to be measured, 56

Step 2: Identifying KPIs vs metrics, 58

Step 3: Defining the KPI number, 62

Step 4: Building the baselines, 64

5.3 Building a dashboard, 66

Chapter 6 Setting Expectations – KPI Goal Development, 69

External benchmarking, 73

Internal benchmarking, 74

Opportunity based benchmarking, 74

6.1 Pillar goal development, 75

Step 1: Choose goal‐setting approach, 75

Step 2: Setting a commitment level (goal), 79

Step 3: Setting milestones, 83

Step 4: Assigning ownership, 86

Chapter 7 Adding Value – Program Development, 89

7.1 Program development, 92

Step 1: Gap analysis, 92

Step 2: Pareto analysis, 93

Step 3: Program identification, 94

Step 4: Program metric development, 96

Step 5: Program goal development, 97

Step 6: Action plan development, 99

Chapter 8 Getting Tactical – Strategy Execution, 102

8.1 Communicating the strategic plan, 103

8.1.1 Purpose, 104

8.1.2 Pillars, 106

8.1.3 KPIs, 107

8.1.4 Goals (aka Commitments), 107

8.1.5 Programs, 108

8.2 Cascading the strategic plan, 108

8.3 Building accountability, 109

8.4 Managing strategy execution, 112

8.4.1 Building the right team, 114

8.4.2 Being disciplined, 115

8.4.3 Locking in the gains, 116

8.5 Leveraging technology, 117

Final Thoughts: Making the Leap, 119

Tools and Resources, 126

References, 140

Index, 141