Value-based management and culture

Value-based management provides a precise, unambiguous metric that organizations can use to make decisions at every level. The thinking is simple: discounted future cash flows determine the value of companies, which create that value only when they invest capital at returns exceeding its cost.

Beautifully simple ...

This quote is from the pitch for McKinsey's Tim Koller archive article: What is value-based management? (which is based on a chapter from the second edition of Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies). It appeared in the second quarter 2007 edition of McKinsey Classics.

Interesting: it argues that all value-based managers should focus on changing the corporate culture, not the methodology.

This stuff is old and yet. It seems that culture is a hard nut to crack... and there is no formula for that, at least none that I know of.

As far as I can see, this classic article will still be of actuality in 10 years, and longer.