As Archie Bell and the Drells would suggest, all of us in management need to Do the Tighten Up. It is not that we haven't built effective systems of operational and administrative procedures, information capture and dissemination, and personnel accountability. These are the basics. But somehow things still fall through the cracks. Good ideas go unrecognized, problems go unnoticed, excellence goes unrewarded, opportunities go unexploited, and threats go uncountered. This is the plight of every manager in this environment of rapid change and global markets. A bogie can come right out of the sun with twenty-millimeter cannons blazing. It may be external or internal. A bogie is a bogie. The internal ones can be addressed most easily but also can be the most disastrous.

Left alone, and by this I mean not re-evaluated in the context of the broader needs of the organization, nuts will loosen. Just as the pilot wiggles the aelerons during the preflight check of an aircraft, top management needs some mechanism to wiggle the various systems to determine if they are tight and will function in flight as they are intended. This managerial tightening up is one of the most powerful byproducts of an Integrated Management System.

An Integrated Management System starts with the Integrated Planning Model (IPM). The model not only is a tool for budgeting and planning, it is also an ongoing audit of the tightness of information systems. Many accounting errors can impact management's understanding of the business without being inconsistent from an accounting point of view. Accounting audits will not find them. The IPM requires a level of operational consistency than helps to tighten up information systems.

The IPM becomes the centerpiece of the Integrated Planning System. This system involves everyone in the organization in providing the information to construct and maintain the ongoing understanding of what makes the organization tick. By asking members of the organization on a regular basis to give operational details that do not flow automatically into the information system, employees become concerned about these things. The fundamental principle is that an unattended nut will get loose. By asking operational questions, the Integrated Planning System inherently requires a large number of operational functions to tighten up.

The Integrated Planning System becomes the source of measures of performance for individuals and accountability measures for the whole organization. The use of these measures forms the core of the Integrated Management System. This system of information, understanding, and accountability inherently accomplishes one of the most difficult roles of top management ― Doin' the Tighten Up.