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Execution Skills
By Jeroen De Flander – Last updated June 24th, 2016
Strategy execution is something successful leaders focus on. According to research published in The
Harvard Business Review, “Companies realize only 40-to-60 percent of their strategies’ potential
value”. Successful leaders know these numbers and understand it takes much more than a great
strategy to be number one. You need to turn that great strategy into great performance.
That’s where strategy execution comes in. It bridges the gap between brilliant strategies and superior
performance. Led by Balanced Scorecard icons Kaplan and Norton and best-selling authors Bossidy
and Charan, Strategy Execution has become a fast-growing bleep on the radar screens of top
executives. But simply appearing on that radar is not enough to make it happen. Each company,
large or small, needs to master crucial Strategy Execution skills. And that’s where this guide can
help you to boost your strategy execution skills and knowledge
Check out the table of contents below for some quick jumping around.
Updates to this Strategy Execution article
This article has been kept up to date with the best strategy execution practices since December 2012.
The most recent update was on June 24th, 2016.
The goal of this strategy execution guide is to let all the info of all the different blog posts, articles
and ebooks I wrote about strategy execution, here and on other sites, fall into one big piece: the
ultimate strategy execution tutorial!
1. 1. Strategy Execution needs a sound Strategy
1. 1.1. 7 things every leader should know about strategy
2. 1.2. 7 habits of great strategists
3. 1.3. 8 strategy questions every CEO should ask
4. 1.4. Inspiring Strategy Quotes
2. 2. Strategy Execution definition
3. 3. Strategy Execution model
1. 3.1. The 8, a simple strategy execution model
2. 3.2. The model building blocks
4. 4. Strategy Communication
1. 4.1. Reach for the head, heart and hands
5. 5. Strategy Execution Cascade
1. 5.1. Facts and figures about the Balanced Scorecard
2. 5.2. The Balanced Scorecard: upstream and downstream movement
3. 5.3. The 4 benefits of a Balanced Scorecard
4. 5.4. 14 tips to get the most out of your Balanced Scorecard
6. 6. Individual Goal Setting
1. 6.1. 12 insights from 100 goal-setting studies with 40,000 individuals
2. 6.2. Six secret success factors for best-in-class goal setting
7. 7. Performance Coaching
1. 7.1. 6 things every leader should know about coaching
2. 7.2. The GROW coaching model
8. 8. Strategy Execution Quotes
9. 9. Strategy and Strategy Execution Trends
1. 9.1. Shared Value: a new approach to capitalism
2. 9.2. From time management to energy management
3. 9.3. Individual performance cycle goes agile
4. 9.4. Execution skills in the picture in leadership programmes
1. Strategy Execution needs a sound Strategy
A solid strategy execution is driven by a solid strategy. No matter how well you execute, if you set
off in the wrong direction, all execution efforts are just a waste of time and energy. Think about the
saying ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’. An execution hero needs to know what a solid strategy is made of
and should be able to spot a poor one and challenge it properly.
1.1. 7 things every leader should know about strategy
‘Strategy’ is a cool word. Business people like to use it. It leaves a good impression with your
audience if you talk about strategy. It’s even expected from a certain seniority level in an
organisation. But strategy is probably also the most over and misused word in business language.
Most people who use it don’t really know what strategy is all about. And I often have the impression
that the more someone uses the word ‘strategy’ in a conversation, the less they know about the
subject. Here’s a list a 7 things I believe every leader should know about strategy. Know these inside
out and you will do better than 80 percent of the managers that you will come across.
1. Compete to be unique, not to be the best
Strategy is not about being the best, but about being unique. Competing to be the best in business is
one of the major misconceptions about strategy. And if you only remember one tip from this list, it
should be this one. Many leaders compare competition in business with the world of sports. There
can only be one winner. But competing in business is more complex. There can be several winners.
It does not have to be a zero sum game – you win, I lose or vice versa. Within a single industry, you
can have several companies beating the industry average, each with a distinctive, different strategy.
They are no direct threat to each other. There can be several winners. So the worst possible approach
to strategy is to seek out the biggest player in the industry and try to copy everything th ey do.
2. Strategy = compete for profit
Business is not about having the largest market share or about growing fast. It’s about making
money. ‘I want to grow my business’ is not a strategy. ‘I want to grow my business’ is the same as
saying, ‘I want to be rich’. Those things (unfortunately) don’t happen by themselves. Growing is not
a strategy, it’s a consequence. When someone includes growth in their strategy, there should be an
orange light starting to blink. That does not mean that you cannot use the wor d ‘growth’. I use it a
lot in the analysis phase – for example, when you talk about growth areas of the business or when
you look for growth platforms – areas where you can reach potential that will give you additional
profit.
3. Know your industry
A company is not an island – it’s part of a larger ecosystem, an industry. Each industry has its own
characteristics, its own structure. This structure and the relative position your company has within
the industry determines profitability. Certain industries have a higher return than others. Your
thinking about the industry and industry competition will determine your thinking about your
strategy – how you are going to compete within the industry. The better you know and understand
the industry, the better you will be able to determine elements that will make you stand out, be
unique and reap a higher average return than the industry average.
4. Strategy synonym= Choice
In my eyes, this is the most simple strategy definition or a strategy synonym. You need a clear
choice of WHO you are going to serve and a clear choice of HOW you are going to serve those
clients. It’s about connecting the outside world – the demand side – with your company – the supply
side. Or in fancy terms: you need a value proposition for a specific customer segment and to develop
unique activities in the value chain to serve them.
The key word is ‘choice’. You cannot be everything to everybody. You want to target a limited
segment of potential buyers with the same needs. Next, you are going to tailor your activities in such
a way that they meet these needs. Or in fancy terms: you want to tailor your value chain – your
company’s activities – to your value proposition. Strategic innovation is the process to make those
choices – defining a new who and how for the organisation. So next time when some asks, “What is
The 8 Model doesn’t cover all of the ins and outs of the Strategy Execution process. It’s not
supposed to. It’s not a rigid step-by-step instruction. But it does provide a necessary, simple strategy
execution framework.
You can make your strategy execution framework more complex if you prefer. For the
organizational cycle in particular, there are some sophisticated models around. Kaplan and Norton
describe one in their latest book The Execution Premium. You can find a second one that also
includes organizational structure impacts in Making Strategy Work by Hrebiniak.
While I like the insights that this strategy execution framework from Kaplan & Norton or Hrebiniak
provides, their complexity makes them unsuitable as a day-to-day Strategy Execution framework for
the whole organization. I believe a Strategy Execution framework for all managers and staff needs to
be simple, highly recognizable and sexy. (Think like a marketer and make it stick).
I’m aware that you will lose some of the nuances, but that’s a choice you need to make. Besides, it
doesn’t mean you have to over-simplify your Strategy Execution framework. You can use the 8 for
communication purposes and keep a more detailed version to be known only by those who have to
organize the process.
Not convinced yet?
Here are two ‘content’ arguments:
1. The 8 shows the importance of aligning individual and organizational performance, one of the
most important things you can do to improve your success rate.
2. The 8 gives initiative management the attention it deserves (read ‘needs’). International
research fromthe performance factory shows that initiative management is the single most
important execution problem that companies face. In other words, it’s the place where most
performance is lost.
So, if you look for a simple, highly recognizable Strategy Execution framework that emphasizes the
link between individual and organizational performance and gives initiative management the
importance it deserves, go for a simple strategy execution model, the 8.
4.
Strategy Communication
Reach for the head, heart and hands
The communication of strategy and its execution comes in different shapes and forms: from
individual conversations during objective setting over group interactions around the Balanced
Scorecard, and from intranet postings to writing a memo regarding a strategy shift. But they all serve
one purpose: to get the strategy into the heads, hearts and hands of the people.
Heads, hearts and hands
Heads: You want everyone to understand the strategy.
Hearts: You want everyone to be motivated by the strategy.
Hands: You want everyone to take action to get things done.
Strategy communication is crucial to strategy execution success. Communication of the strategy and
its execution is an essential, ongoing component of your implementation efforts. And although some
elements might seem trivial and simplistic on the surface as everyone can communica te to some
degree, the reality shows that it demands substantial skill and knowledge to communicate the
relevant information to the desired person that results in the required action.
So the question isn’t so much if you communicated but how well.
In other words, don’t focus on the question ‘Was my message communicated?’ but rather on ‘Was
my message effective?’.
Look beyond the send button and shift your focus to the receiving end.
I will talk about the company strategy…
…because I feel smart showing others what I know.
…because I care about the outcome and want the company to succeed.
…because I have no choice. Everybody else is talking about it.
…because there’s a financial benefit directly to me – my bonus is linked to the realization of the
strategy.
…because I get bombarded with information.
…because I believe we have a cool strategy.
…because I don’t agree and want to share alternative options.
…because my employees ask me to.
…because it’s expected of me – I’m the boss.
…because I want to link our team objectives to the overall strategy.
…because I’m convinced everyone needs to know – strategy communication is key.
…because I’m a strategy tourist and I like talking about strategic stuff – it makes me feel important.
But talking should not be overrated…
It’s what we do that matters.
But if we are honest, we all talk too much and do too little.
… we say that the new company strategy is the best we had in years but, deep down, we don’t really
understand it.
… we say a good leader needs to act transparent, but that last little project hick-up is best covered
up. It might cost us our next promotion. And, it’s very likely that nobody will notice anyway.
… we say people development is crucial, but we don’t need it ourselves and the people in our team
are too busy running the business.
… we say that simplicity is crucial, but have just implemented two new software tools.
… we say communication is key, but always postpone it until the next phase is ready.
… we say strategy execution is important, but we don’t teach our people how to do it.
… we say we love innovation and dwell about the success of Apple, but we have not produced a
single new idea in the last 12 months and shot at least 20 from our peers.
The problem isn’t in what we say. It’s what we do.
A great strategy story needs:
… a compelling business case that creates enthusiasm and inspires people.
… a simple story line so it’s easy for employees to pick it up and repeat the story vividly at the
kitchen table.
… consistency. Stick to the message and make sure others do too.
… to be easy to relate to. People need to see how they fit in.
… great communication skills to get the strategy into the heads, hands and harts of the employees.
… a heavy investment in awareness creation.
… role models.
5. Strategy Execution Cascade
Once you have defined your strategy, it’s time to cascade it across the organization. The Balanced
Scorecard is the best-known technique to do so. Below you will find some Balanced Scorecard facts
and figures and some tips for the advanced practitioners.
5.1. Facts and figures about the Balanced Scorecard
Who invented the Balanced Scorecard?
Contrary to popular belief, the first Balanced Scorecard was not created by Dr Robert S. Kaplan and
Dr David P. Norton, but by Art Schneiderman – a fact that I was unaware of until a few years ago.
At the time of its conception, Schneiderman worked as an independent consultant for Analog
Devices, a mid-sized semi-conductor company.
Here’s the story. In 1990, Schneiderman took part in a research study by Robert Kaplan of the
Harvard Business School and US management consultancy Nolan-Norton. Subsequently, Kaplan and
Norton included anonymous details of this use of the Balanced Scorecard in their 1992 article on the
Balanced Scorecard. Their article Measures That Drive Performance published in the Harvard
Business Review (1992) wasn’t the only paper published on the topic that year, but it was a great
success and received much attention. In 1996, they published the bestselling The Balanced
Scorecard, Translating Strategy into Action. The initial high-profile articles and this highly
successful book have made the BSC well-known, but perhaps also wrongly led to Kaplan and Norton
being seen as the creators of the Balanced Scorecard concept.
So if you are a Scorecard fan, give credit to Robert Kaplan and David Norton, the founding fathers
of modern Strategy Execution thinking, for making it common knowledge. But thank Art
Schneiderman for conceptualizing the Balanced Scorecard itself.
Foundations of the Balanced Scorecard
While the term and the concept of the Balanced Scorecard was invented by Art Schneiderman and
made famous by Kaplan and Norton, the roots of performance management as an activity go further
back in time. Management historian Alfred Chandler points out that early performance management
practices go right back to the early 19th century and the emergence of complex organisations.
One of the most popular management instruments in the world
Did you know that the Balanced Scorecard is the sixth most used management instrument in
organisations today? It’s an essential management system and a cornerstone of successful Strategy
Execution
Today, the Balanced Scorecard is considered an indispensable instrument for clarifying,
communicating and managing strategy across organisations. According to research by Bain in 2010,
the Balanced Scorecard is the sixth most used management instrument in today’s organisations, with
around 50 percent of all 11,000 survey participants making use of it. The world of academia has also
jumped on the concept. By the end of 2011, Amazon listed nearly 4,000 English-language books
related to the Balanced Scorecard. Meanwhile, many people have something to say about the BSC
with Google hits close to seven million.
What does a Balanced Scorecard actually do?
The Scorecard provides a framework for translating an abstract strategy into specific, concrete
objectives, measures, indicators and actions. It combines a ‘balanced’ (cause/effect) view with a
‘scoring’ (measuring/tracking) view. It focuses on aligning the goals of business units, team s and
individual employees with the company’s overall business strategy. A great Balanced Scorecard
breaks a business strategy down into specific and measurable chunks. It also keeps the long -term
strategic goals visible on the radar.
The ultimate goal of a Balanced Scorecard is to experience Strategy Execution as a continuous
process. Today, the Balanced Scorecard provides much more than multi-view measurement; in many
organisations, it’s an essential management system and a cornerstone of successful Strat egy
Execution.By helping organisations detect problem areas and ensuring that managers and employees
focus their energies in the right areas, the Balanced Scorecard also becomes an important foundation
for operational management.
The Balanced Scorecard should not be viewed as a controlling instrument. Its ultimate goal is to
create focus for what’s really important for the future, ensuring that all employees contribute to the
realization of the company’s mission and strategic goals. Measurement is a means t o reaching a goal
and not a goal in itself.
The Scorecard is also about learning and teaching; about your strategy, the assumptions you have
made regarding winning in the marketplace and the value proposition you have put forward. It can
be a crucial lever to communicating your strategy.
How to automate my Balanced Scorecard? With care!
If you look into the Balanced Scorecard, at some point you will face the automation challenge.
According to 2GC research, more than 100 Balanced Scorecard reporting applicat ions (supporting
the automation of data collection, reporting and analysis) were available in February 2011. A
previous survey revealed that, of all the companies that used BSC software, roughly one -third used
office software to report their Balanced Scorecard, one-third used bespoke software developed
specifically for their own use and one-third used one of the many commercial packages available.
5.2. The Balanced Scorecard: upstream and downstream movement
I’m an early Scorecard adopter having used it since 1996. I’ve learnt the hard way what works and
what doesn’t. One of the most important things on my experience list is that you need to decide how
you use the Balanced Scorecard in your organisation. Or put differently, a Scorecard can offer you
and your company a variety of benefits depending on how it is introduced and used.
The crucial question is therefor not if you use the Scorecard but how you use it. For maximum
return, you need to look below the surface, understand your options and make a definite choice about
‘how our company should use the Scorecard for maximum benefit’. It’s like buying a smart phone
and using it only for phone calls. You’ll miss out on all the other great benefits that such a phone can
offer.
To better understand this crucial point, let’s take a short journey back in time. The first article in the
Harvard Business Review in 1992 about the Scorecard was called Balanced Scorecard – Measures
That Drive Performance. As you can see from the title, the concept of the Scorecard was ini tially
designed to help companies measure performance differently − by focusing on more than financial
indicators alone. (Research in the early ‘90s showed that 90 percent of all indicators were financial).
But what most people don’t know is that soon after the publication of this first article in 1992, the
basic ideas rapidly evolved and two movements were initiated. I call these the ‘Upstream’ and the
‘Downstream’ Balanced Scorecard movements.
Let’s look at the Upstream movement first. When the early adopters started using the Scorecard for
measuring, they quickly learnt that it had other more important benefits.
They realized that the Scorecard also provides an interesting framework to cascade strategy. Four
years after the publication of their first article, Kaplan and Norton included some of these findings in
their book The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action (1996) and continued to
explore the cascading idea further in their later books, particularly The Strategy-focused
Organisation – How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment
(2000) and Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes (2004).
Others followed this same path and positioned the BSC as an ideal approach for cascading an overal l
strategy. It was positioned as the next logical thing for a company to do once it had finished a
strategy revamp or update. The Upstream Balanced Scorecard movement was born.
The Downstream movement was initiated by the software industry that eyed automation
opportunities. The software vendors smelt money and started promoting KPI automation at every
opportunity. Their story line focused on the scoring element and positioned the Scorecard as a
tracking tool – a dashboard for every manager to track his/her own performance with, if possible, an
automated data upload. The Balanced Scorecard was positioned as the instrument to measure and
visualize this measurement. Positioned as an instrument without any link with strategy, the
Downstream Balanced Scorecard movement saw the light of day.
Both schools – Upstream and Downstream – had their share of followers, but the Downstream
movement had a stronger voice fueled by underlying financial interest. So, unfortunately, in many
organisations, for around a decade, Scorecard projects were mainly about building fancy, automated
dashboards.Thankfully, a lot has changed and several Balanced Scorecard automation companies
have adopted a different approach and embraced the Upstream potential of a Balanced Scorecard.
They now know that a Scorecard approach that’s not embedded in their client’s strategy cascading
process will not survive.
5.3. The 4 benefits of a Balanced Scorecard
The next two sections are a summary from the Balanced Scorecard guide.
Here are my favorite strategy execution quotes to spice up your next presentation:
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”
– Sir Winston Churchill
“Execution is a specific set of behaviors and techniques that companies need to master in order to
have competitive advantage. It’s a discipline of its own”
—Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy, Execution
“Strategy Execution is the responsibility that makes or breaks executives”
—Alan Branche and Sam Bodley-Scott, Implementation
“Persistence is what makes the impossible possible, the possible likely, and the likely definite”
—Robert Half
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all”
—Peter Drucker
“Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99 percent alignment”
—Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last
“The best time to make up your mind about people is never”
—Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius – and a
lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction”
—Albert Einstein
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak”
—Hans Hoffmann, Introduction to the Bootstrap
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”
—Leonardo Da Vinci
“You can have anything you want – you just can’t have everything you want”
—Anonymous
“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work”
—Peter Drucker
“Initiative prioritization doesn’t mean distributing all available resources to al l known projects”
—Volker Voigt
“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate
competitive advantage”
—Jack Welch
Related links
Want more? Here’s my ultimate strategy and strategy execution quotes list.
Reducing the effects of CO2, fighting poverty and cradle-to-cradle: topics that you will find on quite
a few corporate agendas today.
Sustainability is a trend that was identified some years ago and is seeing continuous growth.
But the notion of Shared Value is quite new, a strategy approach where a company looks at
strengthening its strategic position and advances society at the same time. It was introduced by
Porter and Cremer and is a concept that’s gaining more and more followers. The concept of Shared
Value builds on the notion of Corporate Social Responsibility, but moves away from the traditional
trade-off thinking that if you do good for society, you hurt business and vice versa.
Sustainability is more than the latest hype and will become an increasingly important topic. We
predict that the notion of Shared Value will also become more important as sustainability becomes a
strategic differentiator and those companies that find ways to create shared value will have a better
competitive position.
But this does not mean that you have to jump on the bandwagon without pausing for thought. Each
company is unique with its own specific value chain, choice of strategy and geographical presence.
Not every country looks at sustainability in the same way or has the same growth challenges, but
these should not be excuses to exclude the topic from your reflection process of your company’s
strategy, a scenario where the company focuses on creating shared value.
The key question to ask yourself is ‘How you want to define the relationship between your compan y
and the society it operates in?’. We see three generations of CSR: you can be a Donator, an Avoider
or a Creator. Where is your company at and where do you want to be?
The first CSR generation is made up of Donators. They are good citizens who believe in the
traditional trade-off between organisations and society, but want to give something back to society,
to compensate. The good cause is often randomly selected and driven by the personal preferences of
a few individuals, most often the owner or CEO. There is no ambition to strengthen the strategic
positioning, but many use it to look good to the outside world and as an advertising campaign on
their annual report or website.
In fact, I believe that quite a few Donators engage in CSR to create goodwill and keep off the
activists’ radar. Let me explain. The world around us is changing. The general public has taken a
new position – sustainability has become the new norm, at least from a lip service perspective.
Saying you are against sustainability is simply not done in today’s world. In Europe you’d be
signing your death warrant. In this new world, activists are also more aggressive and look for ‘bad’
examples that they can use and abuse in their campaigns. So what do Donators do?
They try to create (read: buy) goodwill through CSR. They commit an amount of money to show the
world that they are sustainable; they give their annual report a nice green gloss, put some trees or
windmills on the front page and show nice pictures of smiling people with their executi ve in some
far-off country. And the costs are written off as an expense. CSR is a smart move, like point -of-sale
material or a marketing campaign that wins the hearts of consumers.
The second CSR generation is made up of the Avoiders. Their main objective is to reduce any
negative impact of their own activities. Avoiders are aware that certain activities from their value
chain have a negative impact on society and try to reduce that impact. A good example is those
organisations that are trying to reduce their energy use.
The third CSR generation are the Creators. This group embraces the Shared Value concept and
view sustainability as a positive sum game. They see Corporate Social Responsibility as an
investment, not an expense. They are also much more selective about the activities they target. They
believe that no business can solve all of society’s problems so a worthy cause is not good enough.
They focus on those social issues that affect the drivers of a company’s competitiveness in the
locations in which it operates.
From time management to energy management
When time management became popular, it seemed to be a solution to all business problems.
Everyone took time management courses and started looking for efficiency gains everywhere.
Companies promoted it and started carefully monitoring the use of time.
But since time management became popular, the world has dramatically changed, our business
interactions speeding up tremendously. Thirty years ago, a typical business interaction went
something like this. Your company wants to do business with another company. After a nice lunch to
talk about opportunities, you send a letter to the contact person to formalise ideas. A few days later,
the recipient plans an internal meeting to discuss the matter, the results are dictated to a secretary
who sends a letter back.
You plan a meeting in two weeks to discuss it further…” Today, you might talk to your boss after
lunch, then write an email that evening to your contact person. You receive a response by midnight
saying she will discuss your feedback with her boss. At lunchtime the next day you get a formal
email confirming the agreement.
It is a mistake to think that the increased speed of business is only technology driven. Yes, it’s true
that new means of communication enable us to communicate faster, but the real change is in the
mindset. We expect things to move forwards at the same speed as technology. If we don’t get a
response to our email within the next 12 hours, we believe something is wrong.
And as today’s technology is so advanced, we – the managers – have become the bottleneck. We
have reached the time management optimum as there are only 24 hours in a day and only so many
emails we can write and respond to in an evening.
What’s the result?
We try to become even better at time management and start to cut corners. A typical example is
collective smart phone sessions. It is still called a meeting, but in reality it’s just a bunch of
individuals sitting around the same table cleaning out there inbox while someb ody in front makes
some background noise. But if we are honest, that’s not the solution either.
The biggest problem is that people don’t cope with work anymore, the speed and the feeling that
work is never-ending is stressful. There have never been so many people suffering from burnout in
the Western world. In fact, a number of organisations that we talked to list avoiding burnout in the
top three of their HR priority list.
So what’s the solution?
We have to evolve our thinking from time management to energy management. The limits of
productivity are not defined by time or hours of work, but by the energy levels we have.
We believe it’s crucial to have such a debate in every organisation and look for paths to better
energy management. There is an organisational angle where the cultural elements have a big impact,
for example, do you have a culture of endless meetings in your company and on a personal level, do
you know when you go into overdrive and it’s time to take a break?
The speed of technology will not decrease so energy management will become more and more
important on an organisational and individual level. We will have to learn how to manage the overall
energy balance of the organisation as well as personally managing our own energy levels. To do this ,
we have much to learn from the younger generation who cope much better with the new time
dilemma. They understand it’s impossible to follow the speed of technology and they clearly say no
to certain things. They make choices.
And finally, a comment on energy management in times of crisis. For most individuals, a crisis is a
stressful period in their business life. And quite a few of them are stretched to the limit, with the risk
of burnout just around the corner. When the economy picks up, companies shift gear again,
demanding that people go the extra mile. There is a risk that this could prove a push too far. Be
aware of the impact that the crisis has had and continues to have on the energy levels of people in
your organisation and take action to restore the balance before jumping into a new venture.
Individual performance management cycle goes agile
Individual performance management is a mature process in most organizations, especially bigger
ones. The downside is that the process very often becomes incredibly structured and overly complex.
With a focus on cost reduction and adaptability, we have identified seven trends and estimate they
will pick up in the following years:
From yearly to quarterly reviews: In a business world where things change at l ightning speed, the
objective setting needs to follow the business. If the overall business objectives change, individual
objectives need to change as well. If not, the exercise becomes obsolete. But as most of the current
objective-setting processes are too heavy, they aren’t adapted to the new needs. We see a clear trend
of more and more companies making the process lighter, but increasing the frequency of reviews
from once a year to a quarterly process.
Cry for simplicity becomes harder: The individual performance management process has become too
heavy in many organisations, a complexity that managers are highlighting. It’s time for organisations
to answer the question: “What is really needed, what’s at the core and what would be nice to have”
and act upon it.
Importance and quality of the learning objectives increases: The learning objectives are the
individual objectives related to the skills and competences that the individual needs to develop in
order to increase the success rate of business objectives. They are tailored to each individual and
always related to the business objectives. Most people find the setting of development objectives
much more difficult than that of business objectives. But we are slowly seeing some improvement.
The added value of performance coaching is increasingly being recognized: The manager as the
coach is a leadership style that is slowly becoming the predominant model. The role of the hierarchy
continues to be important in some parts of the world, but at least during the p erformance discussions
coaching is becoming ever more common.
Related skills development changes quite fast: Teaching people how to set, monitor and evaluate
high-quality individual objectives is also changing. The typical classroom training where you put
people in a room for one or two days and drill people to make objectives SMART is from the past.
Best-in-class companies go for high energy, short sessions that tackle the core of individual
objective setting. The use of learning instruments like video and other e-learning tools is also
becoming very popular.
More emphasis on the link with the overall strategy: Individual objective setting is not an individual
exercise that you undertake to satisfy HR. Fortunately, more and more companies are realising this
and spending time and energy to improve the link between the individual and overall strategy. This
ranges from a formal presentation or video from the CEO explaining the overall direction and
requesting what role you can play to exercises where people have to link their own goals to the level
above.
Measure the quality of the objective-setting cycle differently: “Does everyone have individual
objectives?” has been the quality norm that quite a few organisations have been using for years.
“Yes, 98 percent of our employees have individual objectives” was the victory shout. But having
objectives is not the same as having employees working at peak performance. Luckily, more and
more leaders realise this and are changing the way that they measure the quality of the individual
objective-setting process.
Execution skills in the picture in leadership programs
Strategy Execution is on its way to maturity. Robert Kaplan and David Norton started a new
management revolution in 1992 with the popularization of the Balanced Scorecard concept.
Originally launched as a new way of measuring strategy, taking other measures into account rather
than merely financial ones, the Balanced Scorecard quickly became the instrument that made
managers think harder about the implementation of their strategy.
And today, more than a decade later, Strategy Execution has grown out of its infancy and is on its
way to maturity. Organisations are adopting execution ideas. One of the trends is to define a specific
role for the organisation to keep execution efforts moving in the right direction. For example, quite a
few companies have an office of strategy management – a team reporting to the CEO or a senior
executive that monitors strategy and strategy implementation – or create a new job of Chief
Execution Officer, a senior role at the top to drive execution efforts across all business silos.
Besides execution popping up on organisational charts, we also see an increase in visibility on the
skills development side. Many best-in-class organisations today have integrated a specific Strategy
Execution module into their in-company leadership programs – a half to three-day program that’s
tailored to develop those specific execution skills that fit the company’s needs. The same goes for
open educational programs. Quite a few renowned business schools like the London Business
School, INSEAD and Wharton have recently started programs specifically tailored to develop
execution skills.
A secondary effect of this increased attention to Strategy Execution leadership development is that
people are more interested in finding out more about strategy. We see a clear trend to going back to
the basics of strategy, the ambition to go beyond the ‘blah blah’ and the motivation to understand the
true dynamics of strategy and competition.
Strategy execution: twenty conversation starters to keep you thinking and talking
The days that authors might get the last word are over.
That’s your job now.
So now that you’ve read this ultimate guide about strategy execution, go out and laud or lash it on
your blog or your favorite social network site.
But if you really want to make these ideas come alive, talk them over in person – with some
colleagues from work, study buddies, or your book club.
Here are twenty questions to get your conversation going:
1. The Execution Shortcut talks a lot about decisions. How does the decision process works in
the teams you are involved in? Is there a link between the Big Choice and the SMALL
choices?
2. Why doesn’t repetition help to overcome the Curse of Knowledge? What’s a better
technique?
3. Can you name the seven execution villains and point out your experiences how they
negatively influenced one of your ideas?
4. Why do we need to aim for the Heart first?
5. How well to you communicate? Think about a major project you where involved in and try to
point out the positives and negatives? What advice from The Execution Shortcut will help
you to improve your communication efforts?
6. We all have ideas we like to realize. What are yours? And what are three things you c an start
doing today to improve their chances for success?
7. Name your favorite story from the book and point out why? Which colleagues or friends
could benefit from it as well?
8. I point out the importance of real commitment. What’s your micro-commitment on the
projects you’re currently involved in? Are your delivering Big Yesses? If not, why not go for
a no?
9. If you’re a leader, how could you increase the autonomous decision power of your team
members?
10. What’s the most challenging goal your after? Can you improve your chances for success by
applying Bandura’s Theory?
11. (for those who read the book The Execution Shortcut) Have a look at the shortcut map. Can
you spot at least 10 ideas? (Expert) Can you name all 25 ideas? (Master) Summarize the book
using only the drawings.
12. Why are habits so important for executing an idea? What are the habits you can install to
improve your success rate?
13. What are the things that truly motivate you? How much time do they get in your agenda?
14. Why should we focus more on decision patterns instead of action plans?
15. Think about how you can continue to improve your strategy execution skills. Have a chat
with a coach, friend, co-worker to receive honest feedback.
16. Think about one of your ideas. Do others really understand what it is all about ? Are you sure?
Can you identify strategy graffiti? If so, is there a pattern? Think about ways to let the core of
your idea shine more.
17. Take a moment to think about what success looks like for your idea. Have you defined a clear
finish line for your idea like JFK and Schrauwen? If not, try to define one.
18. 100 item challenge. How would you redesign your work environment to simplify work?
Focus on those things you can influence.
19. How do you measure success? Is it a lag or a lead measure? Can you identif y more lead
measures?
20. Identify 3 things you will start doing more as from now to become an H 3-connector.