fully integrated framework in any strategic renewal action plan. The people side (job/function/organi-zation) must be sensitively managed, considering the natural resistance to change, as people are engaged to create and sustain change in the systems side (system/process/activity) where they intersect with the processes and information systems of the business and vice versa.

To the degree that new strategy addresses management basics (measures, accountability, management, commitment, and communications), it will inevitably include changes in business direction, management methodologies, policies, measures, and accountability, including process ownership assignments. These are addressed, planned, and executed in the Strategic Loop. Modifications in function and process management, re-prioritization, and resource reallocation occur in the Management Loop. Execution and spot and continuous improvement must be planned where human beings intersect with processes in the Activity Loop.

Successful managers have discovered an easier and more effective mechanism to raise the probability of change implementations. Using performance management tools and templates, they proac-tively build contingent and preventive action plans into their programs to recognize and offset the natural (and healthy) resistance their employees and managers manifest to change while addressing their own past deficiencies in handling major change initiatives.

Effective implementation and follow through are impossible without well-thought-out and extensively deployed measures. Just as corporate strategic and tactical leverage points and priorities cannot be determined in the absence of pertinent performance criteria, how can anyone know when implementation is finished or how to manage in follow-through if measures and associated accountabilities are nonexistent, weak, or inappropriate.

Looking beyond the shadow of 2002, strategic renewal is a deliberate four-step process.

1. Diagnosis and Prognosis

2. Revisiting Strategy

3. Renewal Action Planning

4. Implementation and Follow Through

The first three steps can be completed in less than three months by any organization willing to commit itself to the task. The duration of the fourth step obviously varies according to the nature and degree of change required, but can be planned in practical stages. In the hands of competent management, implementation start-up usually produces immediate performance improvement results, often simply because senior management clarifies just what they expect and how they will support their expectations.

Follow through is a life's work. As Thomas Jefferson said two hundred years ago, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance"; in business, "The price of successful growth and profitability is the continuous maintenance of dynamic strategy and the laser-like focus on business fundamentals." Back-to-basics management is never simplistic. There is no shame in defaulting to the proven fundamentals. In fact, any close examination of current management fads will show that they are rooted in or derived from essentially the same long-standing core set of principles.

Understanding and applying performance architecture to provide a visual template on which to overlay both systems and methodologies in proper alignment will facilitate their constructive integration into full support of strategic and tactical objectives. •