“You have to have a strong culture, consistent
performance, great people; you have to do it
all,” Brown said. “It’s really fun to hang out with
these types of companies … they’re quite in-
spiring on many fronts.”
Companies are assessed on several levels, in-
cluding strategy, capability, alignment and fi-
nancial performance. The judging framework
is based on qualities that Deloitte discovered
years ago while researching companies that
achieved sustainable global growth; standards
that are now applied to list hopefuls. The first
category, strategy, has to make sense in the
context of the company’s industry, Brown ex-
plained, and then has to be communicated
throughout the organization from the leader-
ship team through to line workers. “Best Man-
aged companies have a robust strategy and
communicate it extremely well throughout the
organization. They have a roadmap on ‘how
we’re going to get this done and how we’ll
know where we are’ throughout the year,” he
added.
Capability looks at an organization’s ability to
execute. Platinum companies are “world-class
executors”, Brown said, and focus on strength-
ening the areas of capacity, productivity and
execution. “They really put their shoulder to
the wheel to be able to execute on what it is
they intend to do,” he explained. If there are
changes in the marketplace, these companies
evolve and adapt more quickly than other or-
ganizations, making innovation a part of their
everyday culture.
Alignment is a popular label in today’s business
world, and it can be a differentiator to whether
a company struggles or soars. It means bring-
ing the team together for a common purpose
and working together in a way that can seem
as effortless as a well-choreographed dance.
“I’ve led teams and I’ve been on teams where
we’ve been completely aligned and passionate
about it, and there’s just noway that the human
spirit gets beaten down in that,” Brown said.
“It’s synergistic and it’s joyful. I’ve also been on
teams where we just couldn’t get aligned for a
variety of reasons. When you reflect back on it,
you think ‘we didn’t get anything done.’” The
DEC 2014
H
business elite canada 9
“You have to have a strong culture, consistent performance, great people;
you have to do it all.”
