Kaplan, R. S. & Norton, D. P. (2006). How to implement a new strategy without disrupting your organization. Harvard business review. 100-109.

How are leaders able to implement new strategies into an organization effectively? The authors have come up with 4 different perspectives needed to easily implement a strategy. They include: the financial, customer, process and learning/growth perspectives. These elements are necessary to create a balanced scorecard for a given corporation. The authors also discuss the idea of strategic themes as a way to create the balanced scorecard and support new strategies.

It seems that these are general concepts that are applicable in any service sector industry, including libraries. Keeping these perspectives in perspective helps keep a team on task, allow for evaluation prospects and helps prove a library’s ROI. Keeping track of perspective growth charts a company’s growth and highlights areas that need more attention before they become major problems.

I liked how the authors gave both good and bad examples of each aspect of the subject. They also showed how all the different parts of strategic implementation separately, and then explained how they work together. I am curious to see if any libraries have used these concepts and how effective they really are in practice.