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Renewing your will to compete: within every company there is an attribute that is so critical to its success that changing it by just 20% improves the bottom line by 40%. This is comparable to increasing capital investment by 70%.

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They had survived. Dan, the CFO, was taking Harry, the CEO, through the company's numbers, and they could see the first signs that the recession was passing. They could also see that their own business was beginning to improve. Perhaps it was even time for Dan to agree to the new enterprise he had been cautioning against over the last year. They had the money, they had the people, and, with the competition still running scared, they had the opportunity. Most importantly, they had the will--at least Harry did. But Dan still had some serious misgivings.

He wondered if the recession had undermined the courage of the company. Perhaps the cutbacks, the downsizing, and the survivor guilt resulting from so many farewells had eroded its competitive spirit. Dan knew that this spirit was the real foundation of corporate performance--not strategy, tactics, or financials. If corporate courage had eroded, would they be strong enough to take steps to get beyond the recession? How would they be able to determine if this had occurred? If so, would they be able to renew the company's confidence? How?

Dan decided he needed to talk with Harry about all this, but Harry wanted to go over the financials first. Since Dan was in charge of the numbers, Harry turned to him ...

The Will to Compete

When we look at the key factors influencing a company's performance, we're drawn first to strategies, processes, procedures, machinery, and such. But further consideration reveals that the proficiency of all of these features is determined by something else: the corporate management system. If we look even deeper, we see that the effectiveness of this system is affected by something else again, something that might be termed the "Operating Dynamic of the organization" or its "will to compete." I use these terms interchangeably. Both involve assessing the human aspects of a business--the "soft stuff"--elements that aren't easily measured--factors that only inspired leaders can manage well.

As seen in the career of Napoleon, a primary role of...

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