This tool focuses on whether you have the right people in the right positions at the top of your company. Or more precisely: the right people doing the right things. It’s an important tool, because every company basically amplifies what happens at its highest level. After you’ve completely filled it out, you have a measurably easier time objectively identifying and naming the performance deficits of the individual members of your management team.

The larger your company is and the faster it’s growing, the harder it gets to keep everyone involved to the same extent. The One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP) is a simple yet enormously effective tool for distilling your vision down to a single manageable, action-oriented page. To work out your vision, you have to answer seven basic questions: who, what, when, where, how, why and the often quite challenging “do we really tick like that or not”? The so-called “rocks principle” helps you appropriately prioritize things.

People or companies with too many priorities often don’t actually have any priorities at all and therefore run the risk of driving in neutral and not achieving anything meaningful. In contrast, clearly focusing on a single priority – today, this week, in this quarter, this year, in this decade – creates clarity and energizes the whole company. In this book, we devote an entire chapter to this essential aspect, also providing tools and exercises to support you in staying focused and appropriately pursuing your priorities with the enthusiasm of the whole team.

Cash is oxygen for your growth. And the cash conversion cycle (CCC) is the key performance indicator (KPI), because it expresses the amount of time that every dollar (or euro or yen) spent on rents, equipment, salaries, inventory, marketing etc. takes to flow through your business model and wind up back in your pocket as revenue. The book shows how companies can dramatically improve their CCC by, for example, using the One-Page Cash Acceleration Tool. Constantly improving cash flow and developing a better understanding of how cash powers your business is an effective way to improve your company as a whole.