It's only human to long for simple and easy solutions to complex or difficult problems. At least once in our lives, most of us have wished for a diet pill that actually works - one that would enable us to lose 20 pounds in four weeks without either eating less or exercising more.

The desire for simple solutions can also be found in the business world. In their never-ending quest to improve performance, business managers have tried a great variety of management programs and techniques, including total quality management, Six Sigma, reengineering, customer relationship management, and lean manufacturing. Each of these performance improvement techniques has proven successful in at least some companies. But all too often, they fail to produce meaningful bottom-line improvements even when they achieve their immediate objectives.

Performance improvement programs can fail to deliver bottom-line results for several reasons. First of all, many of the best-known improvement programs focus on a relatively narrow aspect of a company's total operations. TQM and Six Sigma, for example, address product or service quality and process efficiency, but they say nothing about whether those products, services, and processes deliver real value to customers. To achieve meaningful results, a company will usually be required to improve performance along several trajectories simultaneously. More importantly, performance improvement programs will often produce disappointing results because they are not closely aligned with a company's overall business strategy. Without such alignment, an improvement program is unlikely to produce significant bottom-line results.