In January 2013 STRIM introduced a snap poll on strategy execution. The guiding question was:
What are the essentials why companies fail to successfully execute their strategies?

The online survey was sent to about 300 international executives. Until the beginning of February, we received 87 returns. Thus the response rate was 29 percent.

Below we have listed the main reasons categorized:

Strategy, Vision & Mission

  • Poor or inappropriate strategy.
  • Strategies are not clearly linked to the Vision, Mission and Values.
  • Strategy should be simple, but it is often made far too complex for myriad reasons (power struggles, group think, lack of logic, etc).
  • Failure to do a customer impact analysis on the strategy: What will the customer realise as a result? What about the other stakeholders?

Leadership & Strategic Alignment

  • A failure of management to think strategically – weak strategic muscles.
  • A failure of management to understand that execution is all about people and process
  • There are too many #1 priorities and strategic initiatives.
  • Leadership at all levels lacks the courage to take real risks. Without risk, there can be no reward.
  • Inappropriate skills on the leadership team to execute the strategy.
  • Functional/departmental goals instead of strategic objectives
  • Keeping the planning process a “secret ceremony” – not involving those who really understand the organisations capability and should participate
  • Lack of alignment and “buy-in” from all management team members.
  • A failure to consider all critical inputs that would allow an effective strategy to be crafted and implemented.

Accountability & Engagement

  • Unclear accountability as to who owns what in the strategy.
  • Failure to establish and hold accountable key individuals for strategy execution – lack of proper monitoring and review and adjustment as needed
  • Not setting clear performance expectations for staff
  • Poor employee engagement in the strategy
  • Not empowering staff to get the job done – management should get out of the way and stop micromanaging

Process & Structure

  • Strategy development and execution are not systematic, repeatable processes – in fact they are not processes but a loose collection of disconnected activities.
  • Lack of a formal strategy execution business process.
  • Believing that “strategy” follows and should fit the “structure”.
  • Lack of a clear roadmap of projects aimed at delivering the strategy, the current portion of which are prioritized in the project portfolio based on available resources and an organizational and cultural plan for change.
  • Failure to leverage core or organisational competencies.

Adaptability & Communication

  • Weak or wrong metrics around the strategy.
  • Metrics are too generic, particularly when they are not revenue related, no distinction between lagging indicators and leading indicators.
  • Failure to identify the critical success factors for achivement of the strategies as well as the potential barriers and how to overcome them.
  • Lack of regular follow-up throughout the year so strategy replaced by day-to-day operations issues.
  • Corporate culture not appropriate for the strategy; culture acts as a barrier.
  • Behaviours which are not in alignment with organisational values – e.g., taking the hill at any cost regardless of the colateral damage.
  • Lack of communication (people) skills.
  • Communication stops to soon or doesn’t clearly link the initiatives to the strategy, resulting in low/lack of employee engagement.
  • Poor understanding and communication of strategy within the organization.

For further information please contact Dr. Volker Mayer.