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Execution

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Once your strategy has been formulated, execution comes in. That’s where strategic intent translates to

engaged action. A common pitfall is too much “blue sky” where the execution plan is set at a level too high to reveal when you have achieved milestones; conversely, it can be so detailed and complex that clarity and focus are compromised.

Many of us struggle with pushing an idea through

to efficient and effective action. It’s the same with strategic intent. You need to strike just the right balance between vision and detail. And that relies on having a robust structure, the right people in the right roles, and strong leadership to guide the process.

STRUCTURE

Is your organization structured to best ensure the attainment of your strategy? If a key component of your strategy is dependent upon innovation, does your organizational structure reflect this? Would an outsider looking at your organizational structure be able to clearly ascertain that innovation is a key strategic priority?

Structure supports your strategy like beams and struts support a building. Three key places to check how well your structure aligns with your strategy are:

•  The organizational structure itself – Working from the top, is there a clear connection between what needs to be done and the role that is responsible for it? Will work flow efficiently and effectively from those roles?

•  Specific roles – Are the required roles populated?

•  Individual responsibilities – Does each role have its top three to five priorities clearly outlined?

Your organizational structure is the framework that aligns your human capital to achieve your strategic

intentions. Organizations are living organisms; strong yet flexible–like the human skeletal and muscular structure. Flexibility is key here; you want a structure that is clearly defined but flexible enough to move and change as you move forward.

Once you have determined that you need to do some

realignment, waiting too long to implement the changes is a common problem. Organizations don’t exist in a vacuum, and you don’t have the luxury of taking them offline to retool when change is called for. Roles are already populated with real human beings, and the implications of change can paralyze you. You’ll recognize this as a creeping issue if you’re employing a whole series of work-around solutions, rather than confronting inefficiencies and having tough conversations.

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Consider this example:

Accounting reports to the VP of Marketing rather than the Chief Financial Officer. This was an interim solution after our former CFO left due to health reasons, and now we don’t want to hurt the VP Marketing’s feelings; for the near future we will have Fred report to two bosses…

TALENT You have a concise, clearly articulated strategy. You’ve determined the best structure. The next integrated area of focus is talent. Do you have the right people in the right roles at the right time? In his book From Good to Great,1 Jim Collins describes it as having the right people in the right seats on the bus, and gives three practical disciplines for rigorous

people decisions:

1.  When in doubt, don’t hire – keep looking

2.  When you know you need to make a people change, ACT

3.  Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems

Misaligned talent is one of the main reasons for stalled growth. The Corporate Executive Board analyzed the performance of over 400 companies listed on the Fortune 100 since the inception of the list in 1955. The researchers define growth stalls as the “moment when a company’s growth rate slips into what proves to be a prolonged decline.”2

One of the top four of reasons growth stalls and ultimately declines (which is irreversible 76% of the time) relates to talent3. A lack of adequate leaders

and staff with required skills not only impairs the

attainment of strategy, it can set the organization on

a path to irreversible decline.

Here is our advice to best leverage talent and avoid the very real talent dangers:

•  Make sure that you have a good fit between the person and the role – right person right seat.

•  Be disciplined in making people decisions both in moving people in, and moving people out of roles.

•  Think of your talent pool as a portfolio of diverse strengths and abilities united under shared values and with a common purpose.

•  Never underestimate the cost of having the wrong people in the wrong roles. It’s like high blood pressure – a stealthy killer.

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LEADERSHIP

Leadership attracts a lot of written attention. A quick Google search yields nearly half a billion citations in

a third of a second. Clearly leadership is a broad and deep topic.

We view leadership as a mechanism whereby strategic intentions are converted to engaged action

that yields organization results.

If we simplify the role of leaders to key accountabilities, there are really three things leaders at all levels need to do:

1.  Inspire Vision

2.  Align Resources to Strategy

3.  Engage Others in Achieving the Organization’s Purpose

Strategy is a way of articulating and communicating a vision. Leadership is a way of inspiring others to join in the vision, aligning efforts to achieve what is possible only with many hands, and this is true at all levels of the organization, from front line employee to Board Chair.

Leadership must be authentic, and by this we mean credible. The single most important leadership trait

that followers look for is honesty and authenticity. Leaders can enhance their authenticity by deepening their understanding of who they are at their very best, something we call MAI™ Positive Core.

The shadow of the leader is very long: small actions become large ripples. It is critical that leaders do what they say they will do. We call this moving your feet in the same direction as your mouth. One of the most significant leadership traps is asking others to do what you say, not what you do. Many parents will be familiar with how well that works out!

NEXT STEPS

So you’ve checked all four boxes now: your strategy is clearly defined; your structure is aligned to support it; you have the right people in the right roles and your leaders are authentic. Successful execution becomes a reality.

What’s next? Two things come to mind: efficiently cascading objectives through the organization is the first. An article in Mckinsey Quarterly4 on the topic is excellent.

We concur that using a focused approach of no more then five objectives is both practical and efficient.

Coaching and development to bring out the best in your people would be next. Creating a cadence for simple yet targeted interactions throughout the year provides natural coaching and development

opportunities. It also ensures that the organization is moving in a flexibly focused manner in achieving its stated purpose.

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1 Collins, Jim, From Good to Great, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001

3 Olsen, Matthew S., van Bever, Derek, Verry, Seth, When Growth Stalls, Harvard Business Review, March 2008; https://hbr.org/2008/03/when-growth-stalls

4 Bregman, Peter, Mckinsey Quarterly January 2013; http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/a personal_approach_to_organizational_time_management

2 Olson, Matthew S., and van Bever, Derek, Stall Points: Most Companies Stop Growing -- Yours Doesn't Have To (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009)

Reference Notes