Chapter 9. Promise to Practice

Every business book aspires to be actionable in the enterprise, and this one is no exception. But the transition from the written page to the real world can be tricky. In between the covers of a book, ideas stand or fall on their merit alone. But in the real world, these ideas demand that people ” employees , customers, partners , whoever ”act in certain, specific ways to make them work. As a result, when many people are required to work together in pursuit of a single overarching goal, there's often a conflict between an idea's promise on the page and its practice in the enterprise.

Until now, this book has focused on how companies can align themselves from the perspective of the activities of BTM and from the perspective of strategic direction and tactical control. But to help you bridge the gap between promise and practice and get started with BTM in the real world, there's another perspective that's important as well: That of the people that make up the organization. How should they ”with all of their real-world responsibilities and competing priorities ”tackle BTM?

So what's the best way to take the ideas in this book and implement them in your own organization? Remember that I've gone out of my way to emphasize that BTM isn't a strict methodology. That's important to mention since methodologies require people to perform specific tasks that may be different from the ones that they currently perform. This puts strain on the organization, and is one of the main reasons that a methodology may succeed in promise but fail in practice: People can't and shouldn't be asked to turn on a dime to accommodate the latest management fad, especially since there's often a lot of knowledge and expertise built into the way things are currently done. But, at the other end of the spectrum, if people don't change their behavior at all how can we expect to do away with the conditions that lead to the disconnect in the first place? This dilemma, in fact, points to a central question whose answer is crucial to understanding how the organization should view BTM: Is it an art or science?