Every decision an owner makes runs into two questions. What is this worth if it works, and can this company actually execute it.
Most teams answer the first with a number in a deck and never ask the second out loud. Nine months later the initiative is dead and nobody can say when it died.
The ClearBridge System is 14 levers that answer both. Seven are financial. Seven are organizational.
Seven that move profit and cash
What a decision is worth.
- Price
What you charge.
- Volume
How much you sell.
- Direct costs
What it costs to deliver what you sell.
- Operating expenses
What it costs to run the building around the delivering.
- Receivables
How fast customers pay you.
- Payables
How you time what you owe.
- Inventory or unbilled work
How much cash is sitting still.
The first four live on the P&L. The last three live on the balance sheet, which is why most people below the CFO have never worked them. The Well-Run Company works through all seven and the structure around them.
Seven that set the ceiling
Whether the company can execute it.
- Structure
Who owns what.
- Process
Whether the agreed method is the real one.
- Resources
Whether people have what the work actually requires.
- Information
Whether the numbers arrive in time to act on.
- Innovation
Whether people still bother to offer ideas.
- Training
Whether you developed the person you promoted.
- Engagement
Whether the other six are working.
I call these SPRIITE. Leadership owns all seven. I score them 1 to 5, with leaders and their teams scoring separately, and the gap between the two is usually the most useful number the exercise produces. The SPRIITE Series takes them one at a time.
Why both
Hiring two salespeople is a volume decision. What it is worth takes ten minutes of arithmetic. Whether it works depends on whether there is a sales process to put them in, someone to train them, and capacity to deliver what they sell. Structure, process, training, resources.
The financial seven price the idea. The SPRIITE seven tell you whether it survives contact with your company.
How the work runs
Coaching with the owner runs through all four, from day one.
Score your own company
The free assessment covers the seven conditions in about 3 minutes, scored 1 to 5, with your results as soon as you finish. Take it yourself, then have your leadership team take it without seeing your answers and compare.
If you want another set of eyes on the result, the next step is a conversation.