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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Names: Azzarello, Patty, author.
Title: Move: how decisive leaders execute strategy despite obstacles, setbacks, and stalls / Patty Azzarello.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2017] | Includes index.Identifiers: LCCN 2016044306 | ISBN 9781119348375 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119348368 (epub) | ISBN 9781119348405 (ePDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Strategic planning. | Organizational behavior. | Leadership.
Classification: LCC HD30.28 .A994 2017 | DDC 658.4/092 – dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016044306
INTRODUCTION
WHY GREAT STRATEGIES AND CHANGE INITIATIVES FAIL
A while back I was asked to participate in one of those executive leadership programs where you go off-site with your peers and role-play a business simulation over the course of a couple of days.
You found yourself in charge of a fictional business, needing to make smart decisions, trade-offs, and investments to grow your revenue and profits in competition with your peers and their pretend businesses.
One of the tools you had in this simulation was the ability to make investments in various predefined “initiatives.” These initiatives were things like “manager training,” “supply chain cost reduction,” or “accelerating product development.”
Investing in an initiative would result in an advantage, like extra profit from cost reductions or shorter time to market. You couldn't just apply these initiatives. Just like in the real world, if you wanted to invest in an initiative, you needed to find the money to fund it from somewhere else in the business. You could either make a short-term profit trade-off, or take investment from another part of the operation to fund the initiative.
But unlike the real world, all you needed to do was to choose an initiative and fund it – and then your business gained the advantage in the simulation. You simply wrote the check and collected the benefit. Just like that. Every time.
One of the most senior executives joked, “The great thing about these initiatives is that they actually work! In our world, we just spend the money on the initiative, and then it doesn't help. I wish our initiatives worked this well.”
Everyone laughed.
Isn't that awful? That we can all so easily relate to spending money on strategic initiatives that don't work? Why do we keep doing this?
Strategy Without Execution = Talking
At the heart of every execution problem is the fact that there are not enough people doing what the business needs to move forward.
Whether we are talking about transformation, specific strategic initiatives, or overall business strategy, I frequently observe that execution stalls because of some particular, common, and chronic challenges – systemic issues that occur in all organizations, which leaders often just accept as an unchangeable part of the environment.
