Accelerating Performance

Foreword

One of the great pleasures of writing this book is that we had the opportunity to spend time with the CEO or other senior executives at so many of the 23 companies around the world that our research identified as the most successful in recent years. These 23 “superaccelerators” have cracked the code. They have managed to be both big and agile, pulling away from the pack through the sort of disciplined approach to acceleration that we lay out in this book.

The stories these executives told us give life to many of the concepts in the pages to follow. For example:

HDFC Bank can provide customers with a “10-second loan.” Paresh Sukthankar, the bank’s deputy managing director, told us that a profile can be developed in the background based on the information a customer provides online, and the subsequent loan can be processed and granted for a modest sum within seconds. We talk in the book about the need for “digital dexterity,” and the Indian financial services company provides a shining example.

While we talk about the need to “speak truth to power,” MasterCard has a pithy saying that addresses that need: “Good news takes the stairs, and bad news takes the elevator.” President and CEO Ajay Banga told us that he gets tired of all the self-congratulatory e-mails that are common in business: “So I’ve told everybody I don’t need good news.” Instead, he asks to hear first about the problems that need to be resolved.

Cigna, the huge health insurer, provides examples of two ...