How to Move from Strategy to Execution
Summary. Three out of every five companies rate their organization as weak on strategy execution. When you dig into the potential barriers to implementation, there is a general lack of understanding of the various factors at play, resulting in the inevitable managerial justifications — “poor leadership,” “inadequate talent,” “lack of process excellence,” etc. This article suggests three key steps to build the right execution system: 1) a good strategy, 2) the right organization, and 3) effective management. With these three ingredients in place, human ingenuity can be unleashed, and employees can collectively deliver on the company’s strategic goals.
Strategy in Greek (strategia) means the “art of the general,” and, since ancient times, implied the ability to achieve a complex battle goal. In the modern business world, common “battles” may include executing a digital transformation strategy, winning the war for talent, or disrupting yourself before others do so. Whichever it might be, the only valid strategy is one that can be executed. As Thomas Edison famously noted, “vision without implementation is just hallucination”.
While it is difficult to separate faulty ambition from faulty execution, we know that most companies are not great at the latter, with one study noting that employees at three out of every five companies rate their organization as weak on execution. Many leaders think their strategy is “right” but lament that implementation is the problem. We have yet to meet a single leader who reports that their strategy is wrong but they are excellent at execution. Likewise, when you dig into the potential barriers to implementation, there is a general lack of understanding of the various factors at play, resulting in the inevitable managerial justifications — “poor leadership,” “inadequate talent,” “lack of process excellence,” or the still popular “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
