- The idea looked sound
- The R&D that followed seemed strong
- The design phase was thorough and comprehensive
- The plan looked solid
and it failed.
It happens a lot. Some statistics suggest that as high as 60% of strategies fail in some way – and many don’t even get off the shelf. It is not pretty.
Why? Why do so many great ideas, well thought out and planned to the ‘t’ end up in the trash?
This is one of the many questions that Mona Mitchell and I sought to get answered in our journey to publish our book ‘7 Elements of Strategy Execution’.
Of course, as you could imagine, the answers were all over the map. There was no one clear reason that everyone could agree on but what they did agree on was that strategies do fail, often, and that without care, attention and a lot of work, they will continue to do so.
Despite the range of reasons that were offered to us for failed strategies, Mona and I did eventually come up with 7 key elements that we were confident covered almost every one of the reasons we heard. We gained this insight through wonderful lessons learned from a collection of stories from some pretty senior people who were, or are still, working for: NEI Investments, KPMG, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Sleep Country Canada, MedData, TD Bank and more.
The 7 Elements of Strategy Execution:
- Clarity
- Commitment
- The Team
- Accountability
- Synergy
- The Plan
- Leadership
and the ‘umbrella’ to all of these: Culture.
Over the next few weeks I am going to take a dive into each of the elements: what is happening, how does it affect our success and how can we fix it?
In the meantime, if you want to pick up a copy to read – you will find it for sale on Amazon.
And of course, if you would like to talk about a dynamic speaker who would customize a session for your leadership team, give the author a call.