Strategy execution is the single hardest challenge in business.

What makes it so tough?

Here’s a list of the primary execution challenges, based on surveys of organizational leaders:

• Inability to manage change effectively or overcome internal resistance to change.
• Strategy conflicts with the existing organizational structure.
• Poor or inadequate information sharing among individuals or business units responsible for strategy execution.
• Unclear communication of responsibility and/or accountability for execution decisions or actions.
• Employees’ lack of feeling of ownership of a strategy or execution plan.
• Lack of guidelines or a model to guide strategy execution.
• Lack of understanding of the role of organizational structure and design in the execution process.
• Inability to generate buy-in or agreement on critical execution steps or actions.
• Lack of incentives or inappropriate incentives to support execution objectives

BOTTOMLINE: “Poor or vague strategy” is also listed, but it’s relatively low on the list.

SUGGESTION: Looking for a breakthrough vision for how to overcome these challenges? Read the best-seller: Six Disciplines® Execution Revolution: Solving The One Business Problem That Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier by Gary Harpst.

To quote former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz:

 ”When it’s all said and done, more is said, than done.”

Likewise, execution is critical to an organization’s success, yet it’s much easier said than done.

In their book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done,authors Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan strongly support strategy execution as a critical leadership role, making three clear statements:

1. Execution is a discipline, and it’s integral to strategy formulation.
2. Execution is the major job of the business leader.
3. Execution must be a core element of an organization’s culture.

However, execution appears to be the greatest challenge.

In his book, Making Strategy Work: Leading Effective Execution and Change, Professor Lawrence G. Hrebiniak from the Wharton Business School identified the following issues related to the challenge of execution.

Notice that all four of the problems mentioned below are people-related issues:

1. Managers are trained to plan, not execute.
2. Some top executives do not see themselves as responsible for executing the strategies they formulate.
3. Strategy execution happens over a much longer time frame than strategy formulation.
4. Strategy execution involves more people than strategy formulation.

In his best-selling book, Six Disciplines Execution Revolution, CEO and strategy execution expert Gary Harpst identified that the balance of both strategy and execution is the key to lasting excellence. Excellence is a journey that never ends. It’s an enduring pursuit that requires and enduring approach.

BOTTOMLINE: According to Harpst, “Planning and executing, while at the same time managing the unknowns of the real world is the biggest challenge in business. Overcoming this challenge is what we mean by solving the one problem that makes solving all other problems easier. It builds an organization that is preparing for an ever-increasing set of future challenges, which are the natural result of overcoming today’s challenges.”

Let’s face it – change isn’t easy.

At some point, we’ve all vowed to make some big changes – at work, in our lives, perhaps about our health, our fitness, our eating habits, etc.

One thing is for sure – changing behavior isn’t easy. We generally know what to do, the hard part is doing it (the execution part.)

And lasting change – essentially what becomes new behaviors or habits – are some of the toughest challenges there are.

Some organizational psychologists suggest that it first takes “un-learning” of bad habits before new habits can be learned. Others say it just takes continual repetition – from as little as 3 weeks – to as much as 6 – 9 months!

BOTTOMLINE: Changing behavior is a matter of discipline. It’s about learning habits that have purpose, meaning and impact. It’s about attitude, persistence, determination and long-term gain. It’s about continual motivation to not only do things right, but to do the right things. It’s about continually measuring progress toward your goals. And, it’s about being accountable to ourselves.

So….what are you trying to change? How are you tracking against your vision of what it will be like when (not if) you change those behaviors?

We’re proud to announce that our Coaching Community continues to grow in the Midwestern and Western regions of the U.S. with the addition of several new certified Six Disciplines business coaches:

• Ernest Wassmann, SDB Advisors LLC, Lees Summit, MO   
• J.C. Alonzo,  Alonzo Technology Solutions, Lenexa, KS
• Jason Evanchak,  Five-E, LLC, Sparks, NV  

Most leaders fail to understand the implication of the human nature barriers. Our natural tendency is to do what we like doing, not necessarily what we should. The topic of coaching offers the most insight into what it takes to deliver a complete strategy execution program.

Strategy execution coaching implies that an accountability model exists. Employees in organizations will learn to be accountable – that is, they’ll do what is needed and expected – proportionate to the extent in which three factors are present:

• Expectations are clear.
• These expectations are perceived as credible and reasonable because the employees
  were involved in setting them.
• Employees understand the impact of success, or lack thereof, on the organization.

When these three factors aren’t in place, employees can’t achieve their potential, no matter what kind of people they are. A critical element for creating company-wide accountability is to put appropriate focus on results, not activities. For most employees, it’s more motivating to be told what needs to be done and why, not how.

BOTTOMLINE: Being accountable to ourselves is not enough. We clearly need others, preferably outside of our organization, to hold us accountable and to help us accelerate our learning. We need others to help us fight the continual battles against our own human nature and our tendency to do what we want to do, rather than what we need to do.

We need others to challenge our way of thinking and acting. We need others to help us increase our capability to manage the next challenge. We need others to learn how to do this faster than we can do it on our own. Finally, we need others to help make change last within our organizations, to make the new way of working “stick.” That’s what strategy execution coaching is all about.

(Excerpted from Chapter 8: Six Disciplines Execution Revolution by Gary Harpst.)

A methodology, or method, is another name for any step-by-step approach to getting something done. A business-building methodology must include the steps that are essential for an organization to build and sustain a healthy, growing business. It must define how the organization sets its goals and priorities and organizes its resources to best achieve these goals.

It must teach the organization how to stay focused on what’s important, while dealing with the inevitable surprises that occur regularly in life. It must provide ways to identify where the organization is on plan (or off) and do so in real-time.

A business-building methodology must provide a framework for an organization to learn and grow as its size and complexity grows – a way to increase its capability to learn and grow faster than its challenges. Another priority of the methodology is to connect long-term goals with daily decisions. To do this requires connecting people’s activities to the company’s strategy – from the top to the bottom of the organization. It requires a clear process for defining strategy and goals that are then translated into team and individual goals.

Another benefit of having a repeatable and documented business-building methodology is the accumulation of knowledge by individuals and teams. Defining a process and then documenting changes to that process reinforces the learning that occurs so that you don’t forget it. When many individuals use a common methodology, the rate of accumulated learning that is shared is accelerated.

BOTTOMLINE:

• The goal of a complete strategy execution program is to enable organizations to spend an increasing amount of time in Quadrant II. Here, their performance is more predictable and sustainable and execution of strategy becomes balanced.
• Achieving this goal requires thinking holistically about the business – how to make all the components, people, processes, policies, key measures, assets and strategies work together to meet the promises made to customers and other stakeholders and to repeat these in a predictable fashion.
• Be aware that reading about each discipline separately doesn’t make your business perform better instantly any more than taking five golf lessons makes you a good golfer. In the end, you have to learn how to use all of the disciplines together and the only way to truly learn is by doing.
• We are absolutely advocating this: every organization that is serious about excellence
  and execution must practice some defined methodology as the foundation of its efforts.
• The absolute foundation of building an organization that is increasing its ability to execute is a repeatable methodology.
• In addition, the repeatable methodology must be used in conjunction with the other three required elements of a complete strategy execution program: strategy execution coaching,an execution software system, and the benefits of a shared learning community.

What most business leaders think their greatest challenge is, isn’t.

And whatever their problems are today, they’ll be different tomorrow and they will be bigger too.

There is one business problem that if solved, will make solving all other problems easier.

This foundational challenge is in executing strategy.

In other words, building an organization that has the ability to plan and execute, while at the same time, overcoming the inevitable surprises in business. This is the biggest and toughest challenge in business.

BOTTOMLINE:

• The biggest problem in business is not what most business leaders think it is.
• The biggest challenge is not the issue at hand. Planning and execution, while at the same time dealing with the unknowns of the real world, is the biggest challenge in business.
• Focus on solving the problem that makes all the other problems soluble.
• Developing and implementing a strategy that’s balance in growth and profitability is extremely difficult and is therefore rare. And what is rare, is valued. 
• Execution is considered by most business leaders and researchers as a universal challenge.

(Excerpted from Chapter 2, Six Disciplines Execution Revolution, by Gary Harpst)

With all the bad news bombarding us daily, it’s time to get control over the things we can do, and do everything we can during times of uncertainty, to avoid the epic fail.

Here’s a short refresher on why companies fail:

Failure to understand the customer

• Why they buy, what they want (real need for the product/service)

Failure to understand the resources, time required to execute the strategy

• Can the staff, equipment, and processes handle the stated strategy?
• Failure to develop new employee and leadership skills

Failure to obtain senior leader commitment

• Failure to get management involved right from the start
• Failure to obtain sufficient company resources to accomplish task

Failure to obtain team member commitment

• The strategy is not well explained to employees
• No incentives given to workers to embrace the strategy

Failure to manage change

• Inadequate understanding of the internal resistance to change
• Lack of vision on the relationships between processes, technology and organization

Failure to focus

• Inability or unwillingness to make choices which are true to the strategic mission (i.e. to do fewer things, better), leads to mediocrity, inability to compete

Failure to execute the plan

• No follow-through after initial planning
• No tracking of progress against the plan
• No accountability / consequences for the above

BOTTOMLINE: Start today…resolve to focus and act on the things you DO have control over (internal issues), and focus on the highest priority activities you can. You’ll find they all revolve around executing your strategy.
 

During a recent podcast interview, Six Disciplines’ CEO Gary Harpst was interviewed by Jim Blasingame (The Small Business Advocate) about one of the key traits of a true leader: the ability to train and encourage others to be leaders.

Listen to this podcast as they talk about how to make individual workers more responsible and to become “self leaders.”

According to analyst firm Gartner, the nature of work will witness 10 key changes through 2020.