The EVA Challenge: Implementing Value-added Change in an Organization [Paperback]

More specifically:

"It is the framework for a complete financial management and incentive compensation system that can guide every decision a company makes...that can transform corporate culture, that can
improve the working lives of everyone in an organization by making them more successful, and that can help them produce greater wealth for shareholders, customers, and themselves."

Stern and Shiely (with Irwin Ross) focus on the specific challenges which will probably be encountered when initiates are taken to implement value-added change in an organization. They suggest all manner of strategies and tactics to achieve that objective, agreeing with O'Toole's key points in Leading Change when he analyzes what he calls "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom."

For the authors of this book, there have been two major developments in American capitalism which explain why "the opportunity cost of capital" has been miscalculated: "(1) the split between ownership and control of publicly held corporations and (2) the widespread acceptance of accounting measurements [i.e. GAAP] to gauge corporate value, a purpose for which they were never intended." Having defined and then analyzed various problems in Chapter 1, the authors proceed into 12 more chapters whose titles suggest their focal points: The Solution, The Need for a Winning Strategy and Organization, The Road Map to Value Creation, The Changes wrought by EVA, Extending EVA to the Shop Floor [an absolute imperative], Getting the Message Out: Training and Communications, EVA and Acquisitions, EVA Incentives, How EVA Can Fail [and it does...the authors explain why], New Frontiers: real Options and Forward-Looking Eva, 25 Questions [which must be answered fully or forget about EVA], and finally, a Recipe for Success. The book then provides its own value-added benefit: an Epilogue written by Gregory V. Milano which discusses EVA and the "New Economy."

Briefly, I would like to comment on Chapter 13 which offers a "Recipe for Success." The authors introduce and explain six key factors. Having already acknowledged various forms of resistance and resentment which implementation of EVA principles may well encounter, the authors understand full well that these factors may offer the promise of success but by no means guarantee it. They are:

1. "The company must have a viable business strategy and appropriate organizational architecture before EVA can boost performance."

2. To achieve full potential of EVA, a company should install all of EVA's components -- a measurement system, a management system, and an incentive system."

3. An EVA incentive plan is essential, and it should reach as far down in the organization as possible."

4. "A comprehensive training program is equally essential. It should not be limited to top executives but should infiltrate all managerial levels and, ideally, reach down to the shop floor."

5. "The EVA program must have the full and fervent backing of the CEO, who should chair all the all-important steering committee that puts EVA in place."

6. "The CFO and/or the controller should be equally committed. Because they have to deal simultaneously with standard accounting practices, these specialists may have an even greater problem focusing on value creation than a CEO newly introduced to EVA."

Stern and Shiely (with Ross) offer a comprehensive, cohesive, and cost-effective program which, after appropriate modification, can be of substantial benefit to almost any organization, regardless of its size or nature. Milano's insights are especially important in 2001 as so many organizations are attempting (with mixed success) to reconcile the basic principles of the so-called "Old" and "New" economies. (I hope they or Ehrbar next write a book which explains how EVA can be of greatest benefit to privately-owned smaller companies.) Drucker was right: "Until a company returns a profit that is greater than its cost of capital, it operates at a loss." We have all manner of mechanisms by which to determine the exact net worth of an individual executive. Properly understood, EVA principles can do the same for an organization IF if those who lead that organization are guided and informed by the aforementioned "six key factors." If you share my high regard for this book as well as Ehrbar's, you are urged to check out Fitz-enz's The ROI of Human Capital.