Strategy Execution Challenges and Myths

As most leaders and strategy practitioners know, strategy execution efforts for the last 20+ years have, on average, not been all that successful. The research statistics are everywhere.  In the 1980s business reengineering was thought to be the answer and yet on average 70% of those initiatives apparently failed. Twenty years later, with change management all the rage, a 2006 global study of 1,500 executives indicated that 62% of change initiatives failed to create the desired performance results.  In 2013, a PMI-The Economist sponsored research effort showed that for 61% respondents, their biggest challenge was in “bridging the gap between strategy formulation and its day-to-day implementation.”   
n April 2015, Harvard professors Stull, Homkes and Stull, based on research involving 400+ global CEO’s, provided insight into why strategy execution unravels by identifying and debunking “five of the most pernicious myths and replacing them with more accurate perspectives”.  These included:

• Myth #1 Execution equals Alignment: Though top-down alignment and cascading of goals is important, more than 50% of managers want more structured processes for coordinating activities across units.
• Myth #2 Execution Means Sticking to the Plan: Managers are craving more fluid mechanisms to reallocate funds, people and attention as circumstances change, within a specific set of strategic boundaries.
• Myth #3: Communications Equals Understanding: Sending out a large number of communications doesn’t necessarily enable clear understanding. A core set of key messages on how a firm’s strategy, priorities and initiatives all fit together to drive achievement of a specific set of goals are critical and must be communicated throughout the organization, not just to the leadership team.
• Myth #4: A Performance Culture Drives Execution: The internal public and private cultures must be aligned and care about agility, teamwork, and ambition, and be willing to innovate and support experimental failures.
• Myth #5: Execution should be Driven Top-Down: Effective execution needs to be driven from the middle and guided from the top. In other words, executives should enable more structured processes to facilitate coordination and model teamwork.

What is interesting is that the ways that they recommend debunking these myths are all key attributes of organizations executing strategy with agility. In other words these are core cultural values of organizations committed to alignment, accountability and responsiveness based on the use of actionable intelligence. In specific this means leaders should be focusing on driving:

• More structured processes i.e. workflow simplification, standardization and optimization.
  
• More fluid mechanisms to respond as circumstances change.
  
• Strategic messages that are clear that link strategy, Run-the-Business priorities and initiatives.
  
• Public and private culture alignment.
  
• Effective governance from the middle, whilst being guided from the top.