Fundamentals of Level Three Leadership

139. Core Capabilities

Concept

Investments in the three intangible asset pools are useless unless they contribute directly to the enhancement of an organization’s core capabilities. By core capabilities, we mean the imaginary but real clusters of skills that form the basis for an organization’s ability to compete in the market place. Training programs for human capital and social capital and re-organizations for organizational capital won’t be anything more than money down the drain unless the corporation’s core competitive capabilities are fertilized and grown.

Example

In the post-WWII years, Komatsu in Japan had a difficult time until its management realized that unless they could build with the quality that Caterpillar had, they couldn’t compete. ...