The Success Formula

What do successful organizations and smart leaders have in common? They deliver outstanding value to their stakeholders.

Interviews with over 80 leading organizations in private, public and third sectors from all over the world have led Andrew Kakabadse to a fascinating insight: organizations where stakeholder engagement was highest were not those led by charismatic and visionary leaders, but by a culture of delivering outstanding value.

Through his research, he found two different approaches at work. In strategy-led organizations, senior management has a clear notion of how value can be created and enacts a strategy to achieve it with the support of key managers and board members. Value-delivery-led organizations approach value creation differently. In these organizations, the leadership gathers evidence from internal and external stakeholders to determine the value the organization is delivering today and can deliver in the future. A strategy is then put in place to support those findings—and is deliberately exposed to challenges from stakeholders to create engagement.