TAB Tulsa’s Formula for Success

What makes TAB so effective? Tulsa’s TAB Facilitators concentrate on developing a “Formula for Success” for each Board member, and then work with the Member to ensure that progress is made each month toward the “Success” that has been defined. When issues arise, the Member has the opportunity to discuss them in the monthly Board Meetings and receive unbiased input from business owners who have been down the same or similar roads.

Our Formula for Success process helps TAB Members focus on "managing strategically", which we define as the ability to lead a company while managing it, to deal effectively and simultaneously with both the long-term and the short-term and to manage change instead of simply reacting to it. The "aim" of this strategic style of management is excellence by design supported by an effective and efficient organization, sound systems and practices and clear and focused efforts towards sharply defined objectives.

TAB Members desiring to reap the benefits of this strategic management style develop the underlying management capabilities required to ensure the survival and growth that result from this "excellence by design". These critical capabilities are the tools of strategic management. They combine to focus the energies of employees on developing those distinctive capabilities that will lead to market success and that will enable the company to respond to change better than competitors. These capabilities become an "agenda for leadership".

With our help TAB Members develop goals which are focused upon the distinctive capabilities and special value that they provide to their target markets, measurable objectives which are based on a clear understanding of their internal and external environments, and strategies which are within the boundaries of their capabilities and can therefore be successfully implemented. Our TAB Members ensure that their employees and managers understand the strategic direction and what their specific roles are in strategy implementation. They monitor internal and external events and identify what changes are needed in the strategies to keep them "alive".

TAB Members document the outcome of this Formula for Success process in the Strategic Framework shown below. Such a presentation enables the TAB Member to clearly establish a linkage between the mission and the specific strategies and actions required to carry it through. TAB Members have discovered that the simplicity of the Framework helps them assess the impacts of change and evaluate potential responses. The Framework keeps their decisions focused within their strategic direction and becomes the focal point for communicating with stakeholders about their company.

Our Formula for Success and Strategic Framework make it easier for smaller companies to practice the principles set forth in the popular management texts “Good to Great” and “Built to Last.”

Our experience indicates that change will occur either by chance or by design. We believe that the most successful organizations of the future will be the ones that adhere to management principles that position the organization to adapt to and manage change better than competitors.