As the most powerful force inside any organization is inertia, implementation is, by definition, about change to current organizational routines.
Typically, execution of a strategy therefore involves two aspects – HOW to change the organization and WHAT exactly to change.
Execution must always leverage the former skill set, for which others have provided much valuable advice concerning organizational behavior and design. Strategy’s concern is with WHAT needs to be changed.
Possible alterations resulting from executing a new strategy include a shift to any of its elements that contribute to competitive advantage.
There might also be a question of WHEN to change a strategy, but note the implicit assumption that a dramatic shift between strategies is necessary. It is true that, while a test of effective strategy is its robustness over the next several years, it should never be followed blindly when events intrude.
If the underlying logic or a key assumption underpinning the strategy’s success, such as a predicted shift in demand or technology, is violated, the strategy should be changed. More often, however, implementation concerns not such a radical shift, but ongoing course corrections.
Apart from knowing what to change, how and when to do it, still 9 out of 10 organizations fail to execute strategy.
But why?
Managers never ask themselves the two fundamental questions that drive a company’s strategy:
• Who are we going to serve?
• How are we going to serve them?
Change is hard. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, improve your marriage, stop smoking or drinking, start a new relationship, develop a hobby, or finish that degree you’ve been working on for three years, you know what I mean.
When you execute a strategy that requires a lasting change in the behavior of other people, you are facing one of the greatest leadership challenges you will ever meet.
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always gotten”
– Origin Unknown
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