Alix Partners' Peter Fitzsimmons' suggests that turning around companies requires a focus on 4 CAMS: Cash, Achievable plans, Meaningful actions, and Stakeholders.
- Cash – Get your hands around the cash and manage its flow. (Too many organizations fail to understand their sources and uses of cash.)
- Achieveable plans – Develop an achievable business plan (ratcheting back over-commitments even if they have unpleasant consequences for some)
- Meaningful actions – Do 3-5 things that have a meaningful impact on the enterprise
- Stakeholders – Deal with them and the levers for driving change NOW.
These are directly applicable to other crisis situations
- "Cash" is a proxy for the organization's oxygen. Often it really is cash. Other times it's people or product flow. In disaster response, it's food, water, shelter, medical supplies and volunteers.
- "Achieveable plans" are always important. Peter's premise of giving yourself some breathing space so that your overall success model doesn't collapse if you miss one part of your plan makes sense in a whole range of situations.
- "Meaningful actions" are all about doing the few most important things well instead of trying to do too many things. This latter, is a trap many organizations fall into – especially in a crisis.
- "Stakeholders" must be dealt with. It's critical to understand each key stakeholder's platform for change, to create an image of success in their minds, and give each of them actions they can take to be part of the solution.
