Thought for the Day To lend or not to lend?  To borrow or not to borrow?  Those are the questions.    Whether 'tis nobler to accept the financials at face value, knowing them to be at best the company's rear view mirror.  Or by looking deeply into its soul*, to predict surely its future performance. There are just a handful of organizational forces that determine - and therefore PREDICT** - the performance of a company long before that can show in the financials.    Longitudinal studies by McKinsey and London School of Economics, now of more than 4,000 companies, have shown that changing just three of these forces by 20% changes the bottom line by 40%. Knowing what they are, having hard-number values for them, makes lending an order of magnitude safer than with financials alone.  And provides the borrowing company the information it needs to seriously improve its performance.  And assure its ability to service its loans. With so many current and potential borrowers likely to be struggling, every corporate lender should know what these organizational forces are; should know how to measure them; should know, at the very least, how to estimate them. For 25 years we have quantified these organizational forces in terms of a Balance Sheet and  P&L.  We have also helped more than 200 organizations predict (and transform) their performance. We have now created training programs to familiarize managers and lenders with these forces and explain how to measure them.  The programs vary from one-hour presentations (great for introducing the research and concepts at working breakfasts or lunches) to one-day retreats. We would like to tell you about them.  *       Operating Dynamic **     Predicting and Preempting the Corporate Heart Attack For information contact Tom FitzGerald at 847-599-9960 or fitz @ managementconsultants.com