Some years ago, when I was in the military service, I was fortunate enough to be present when one of the leading pistol shooters in the United States gave a demonstration and an hour of instruction. He went through the fifteen necessary elements for an excellent pistol marksman. I carefully wrote down those elements. The next time I shot the pistol, I went through each of those elements and hit the "black" of the target on my first shot. Thereafter, I taught and coached the leading pistol team in Europe and have used those elements to this day. Recently, I went shooting with a state police officer and demonstrated these elements by shooting five so-called "hostage shots" — five rapid fire shots into the head of a target 50 yards away.

What is interesting is that people will shoot a pistol for their entire life and never shoot well if they do not know any of the following fifteen elements — (1) shoot 8 rounds to establish a test shot pattern and correct sights with gunsmith on "Kentucky Windage;" (2) assume the Tai Chi stance; (3) let the cat die; (4) press the web out; (5) extend the arm; (6) pull and push to balance; (7) keep your thumbs up; (8) open the right eye; (9) focus on the sight, not the target; (10) breath to adjust vertically; (11) understand the arc of movement; (12) take out the slack; (13) milk the cow slowly; (14) hold and follow through; and (15) call the shot. If any of these fifteen elements are missed, the person will always be a "partially lousy" shot — no matter how much they try and practice.

Interestingly, over the last 35 years as corporate attorneys, we have watched various corporations come and go, rise and fall, succeed and fail. Even though we are not management consultants, we are like Von Clausowitz or Sun Tzu who, although not famous conquering generals, were observers of generals and able to write the elements of warfare. In the capacity of an active legal observer, we have identified fifteen necessary elements for a corporation to hit the "black" of a target. When corporations miss any one of these fifteen elements, they will be doomed to always being a "partially lousy" corporation — always beneath what they could be if they incorporated all fifteen of these elements into their corporate practices.

We will describe each of the fifteen elements of a successful corporation briefly. Eventually, we will write a detailed chapter in a book on Preventive Law for Business on each element. If you have questions on any one of these elements prior to our writing about them in more detail, please contact us to discuss our observations and conclusions.

The Fifteen Necessary Elements

1. A Common Coordinated Vision of (a) what is your vision of the future structures and activities, (b) what is likely to impede this vision, (c) how to get around the obstacles, and (d) what is the schedule to accomplish this — all four implemented with a professionally conducted brainstorm/think tank session.
2. A Corporate Culture that describes in writing (a) the corporate name that matches the nature of the business, (b) the symbolic logo, (c) the motto, (d) the mission, (e) the statement of values, and (f) the statement of character — all publicized on the business premises.
3. A Written Plan for Success with (a) an overall 5-year strategic plan, (b) a business plan, (c) a 1-year business plan, (d) a marketing plan, (e) a safety plan, and (f) a quality plan. Every successful army must send scouts ahead to plan the route for the main body.
4. An Active, Complete, and Competent Team of Outside Professional Advisors for (a) legal needs, (b) accounting needs, (c) life insurance, (d) property and casualty insurance, (e) human resources or psychology needs, (f) management, (g) computers, and (h) investments.
5. A 5-Year Projected Cash Flow Budget integrated into a computer program that will allow easy changes and testing — a computer model.
6. An Employee Attitude Survey Conducted by an Objective Human Resources Professional that not only measures employee attitude but also surveys their views on (a) what the corporation is doing that it should not be doing, (b) what it is not doing that it should be doing, (c) ideas for improving the company, (d) factors which create bad morale and suggestions on how to improve it, and (e) remarks they want to share with management.
7. An Integrity Agreement and Confidentiality Agreement Signed by All Persons in the Corporation and all persons dealing with the corporation. The Integrity Agreement will provide a simple method of processing disputes and discomforts, using (a) oral and written communications, (b) negotiation, (c) mediation, and (d) arbitration — forever preventing bitter fights and lawsuits. The Confidentiality Agreement will protect the trade secrets and privacy of the corporation and its employees.
8. A Strong, Competent, and Functioning Board of Directors with fiduciary directors or advisory directors from outside the corporation to prevent inbreeding of ideas and to provide a check and balance on the management team with an Executive Committee of three or five directors to function between meetings.
9. A Management Team with a Trained and Experienced Person for Each of the Functions of (a) chief executive officer, (b) chief operations officer, (c) chief financial officer or comptroller, (d) sales and marketing manager, (e) personnel and administrative manager, and (f) production or purchasing manager. In smaller corporations, these functions may be merged with a single individual handling more than one function.
10. Current and Continuous Client Contacts with a system for having the members of the directors and management team confer periodically and regularly with the customers/clients and suppliers to determine (a) what they want from the corporation and whether they are getting it, (b) what the corporation is doing that it should not be doing, (c) what it is not doing that it should be doing, and (d) what ideas they have for a more win-win long-term company/customer relationship.
11. A Vivid, Written Statement of What Is Unique and Compelling about the Goods or Services the Corporation Is Selling with an image statement of what is unique about the corporation such as (a) services, (b) products, (c) the place of business, (d) the customer, (e) the personnel, (f) the price, and (g) the marketing methods that clearly define the company's market niche.
12. A Schedule of Regular, Effective Meetings weekly, monthly, and annually — for communicating what is necessary to and from the personnel of the corporation to establish the "regular breathing" of the corporation and to "oil and grease" its functioning.
13. A Method to Inspect What You Expect. Management Information Systems that provide numbers to the corporate shareholders, directors, and management team with all the "critical success factors," thereby providing all with an "instrument panel" for the corporate airplane.
14. Job Descriptions for Each Employee. Keyed into a large, readable organization chart that shows job titles for each position with the name of each person for each position and the name of the "backup" for each position. The job description for each position will include (a) the title of the position; (b) who supervises the position; (c) who is supervised by the position; (d) the positions for which they are backup; (e) the area of the building for which they are responsible and the property for which they are responsible; (f) the mission of the position; (g) the functions for which they are responsible and accompanying standards; (h) the daily, weekly, monthly, and periodic mandatory tasks; (i) the skills they must have and; (j) the skills you would like for the position and the improvement objectives for the current year.
15. Fair Compensation, Incentives, and Ownership from Every Employee. Every corporation not only must calculate the "going rate" of compensation for every job in the corporation but also must pay this compensation so that it does not expose good employees to pirating from the outside. The corporation also must calculate the break even gross sales amount and use a percentage of the surplus above that break even amount to provide incentives for management and administrative employees who are not already receiving sales commission incentives, production incentives, or profit center incentives. Recent management studies have demonstrated that, if management and employees own stock in the corporation, the chances of corporation success are increased many fold.

The quality of American corporations will determine the quality of the survival of the United States in the economic war during the next decade. It is important for every one of our corporations to include these fifteen necessary elements into its structures and share with the rest of us the knowledge they obtain when implementing these systems into its corporate structures.