The Secret Ingredients Of Strategy Implementation

Organisations understand the need for sound strategies, but few successfully implement those strategies and deliver long term sustained value. Hence there exists an imbalance between strategy and implementation. Leaders spend more time, effort, and energy crafting strategy then guiding its implementation. This imbalance is partly attributed to the availability of a plethora of tools and frameworks (and consultants) to support the devising of the strategy, but much fewer resources and consultants to guide its implementation.

To correct this issue and deliver world-class implementation, organisations need to develop a disciplined implementation mindset. This involves both leaders and their teams taking consistent, deliberate right actions to move the strategy forward. It is about building the “discipline of doing it right”. This article delves into how leaders need to adopt a different way of thinking and approach to deliver world-class implementation in today’s rapidly evolving digital world, where organisations may be excellent at crafting innovative strategies but not good at implementing them.

The article complements the Strategy Implementation Institutes blended online course on providing leaders the “know-how” to implement strategy.

Strategy is about making the right choices. Crafting a new strategy involves making multiple choices about things such as the markets to compete in, growth strategies to pursue, customer segments to target, what sustainability and social responsibility initiatives to incorporate, which technology to invest in, and the ecosystems to participate in.

Implementation moves the organisation from planning to doing, from thinking to achieving, and from making choices to taking the right actions. It requires employees to work differently since the new strategy means doing things differently. Employees, however, are already busy every day. The challenge for leaders is to ensure that they are busy doing the right things that is taking the right actions.

Hence, despite our good intentions, somewhere between thought and action, we lose focus.

Consider these examples. After having potentially life-threatening heart surgery, people know they need to change their daily actions, but most do not. Dr Edward D. Miller, dean of the medical school and CEO of the hospital at Johns Hopkins University, said, “If you look at people after undergoing coronary-artery bypass grafting two years later, 90 percent of them have not changed their lifestyle.”

In yet another example, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health indicated that as many as one in five doctors smoke. Despite knowing the risks of smoking and the supposed need to set a good example for their patients, they still smoke.

Having a disciplined implementation mindset means that the organisation applies an equal balance of tenacity, passion, and commitment to both the strategy and its implementation.

How can a leader bridge this gap between strategy creation and its implementation? Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once said, “As a senior executive, what do you really get paid to do? You get paid to make a small number of high quality decisions.” This sentiment reflects the kind of disciplined focus required from leaders. They need to identify the small, impactful actions that will drive their strategy implementation forward while resisting the temptation to become bogged down in day-to-day operational tasks. But this is not easily accomplished and demands a disciplined implementation mindset focused on consistent, deliberate actions.

To correct the imbalance articulated above and guide the leaders and employees through the implementation journey, the Strategy Implementation Institute have developed a framework to guide leaders through the implementation journey.

Strategy Implementation Roadmap

The Strategy Implementation Roadmap (SIR) is circular as you can start anywhere. It consists of the seven components required to be successful in strategy implementation. The components make up the modules for the course and certification to become a Strategy Implementation Professional.

The seven components that make up the course modules are:

Leaders don’t implement. A leader’s role in strategy implementation is to drive and champion it. The employees are the ones taking the implementation actions every day. Leaders need to stay engaged throughout the implementation, constantly be inspiring and coaching their employees while overseeing and tracking the implementation.

The goal is to create value for all stakeholders. The organisations who are successful in implementing their strategy potentially recognise a tremendous payoff, as they succeed where their competition are failing.

Adopting a new strategy means changing the business model. Sometimes changes are minor and other times they require a whole business model transformation, e.g., adopting digitalisation. But the business model must change to support the implementation.

The initial challenge is to present the new strategy to the whole organisation. In this module, you are introduced to how this can be effectively done by teasing internal stakeholders and having leaders recognise that the launch is only 15% of the overall implementation communication goals. Too frequently in stakeholder management, communication around the implementation dissipates after the first six months. This module places a heavy emphasis on nurturing the communications throughout the whole implementation journey.

Culture drives the way an organisation implements its strategy. Two organisations can have the same strategy but how they implement will always be different as in every organisation, the culture is different. Culture no longer eats strategy for breakfast because of the speed we are working today. Strategy now drives the culture in many organisations and that drives the way leaders must implement.

The level of employees who are disengaged in their work is surprisingly high in many countries and industries. If your employees are disengaged, it is extremely difficult to inspire them to implement, which requires doing more. This is why it’s important to prepare employees with the right implementation attitude, knowledge and skills.

Taking corrective along the way is critical for success. But how do you know where you are and what action to take if you are not diligently tracking your performance throughout the whole implementation journey? Too many leaders start off with the right intentions but somewhere between thought and actions, they lose focus and commitment. Tracking performance is an essential discipline. This module focuses on ensuring the organisation has the right measures in place to manage the implementation and the discipline to constantly review its performance.

The right discipline drives the right actions to deliver the right performance. By adopting SIR, leaders have the frameworks to identify the correct actions they need employees to take. Articulating the right actions and then breaking them up into small steps is critical because it translates the big picture strategy into meaningful insights and viable actions for employees.

When you change your strategy, you must change your measures. Otherwise, you are tracking the old strategy. However, identifying a new strategy is already ensure they are driving the appropriate actions.

When the right measures are in place to track the implementation, they enable the organisation to identify the right actions to take, see where to make corrections along the implementation journey, and enable leadership and employee accountability.

When a new strategy is being rolled out, every activity seems important and urgent, especially at the start.

Implementation discipline is required for leaders to prioritise and recognise what can be achieved when they focus on ‘less’ rather than ‘more’ actions. When the focus is on ‘more’, and the organisation puts out too many objectives and actions, employees become confused about what is important. They compete for limited resources, attend an endless number of meetings, cannot get ahead of their work, and fight a slow and often bureaucratic culture as they try to please everyone (but often end up pleasing no one). On the other hand, the ‘less is more’ technique enables the organisation to be resource rich as it is able to provide the required resources for the limited initiatives, rather than spreading resources too thin over too many initiatives. It also creates an implementation focused culture, where employees have the time, space, and support to do their daily work, as well as take the right implementation actions.

Successful implementation requires early and quick wins to build traction and momentum. When an action is set with a deliverable date that is say, 12 months into the future, it sends a message that action is not necessarily urgent and that can delay its initiation.

The 90 day chunks principle encourages employees to take the right actions by simplifying what is expected of them, thus making it easier for them to engage and participate in the implementation. It also ensures the right actions are being taken. By breaking down the right actions into 90 day chunks and then recognising people and teams when the actions are complete, leaders send a powerful message while also reinforcing the right behaviors. Furthermore, it also discourages procrastination, breaks down long term goals into achievable chunks, and drives leaders to review the progress of the implementation more frequently.

Leaders are often guilty of front loading their communication when launching a new strategy, and then the communication rapidly dissipates. To overcome poor communication, one of the top reasons why implementation fails is that leaders require a mindset shift from being focused focusing on launching the strategy to nurturing communications communication throughout its journey.

This is one of the least practiced principles of leadership and yet one of the easiest to adopt as it requires only implementation discipline and no financial resources. When leaders follow up with employees to hold them accountable, they send a signal about the importance of the implementation and ensure that employees are held accountable for their actions. It also serves to reinforce the priorities across the organisation. Additionally, they are also able to discern if employees require additional resources to succeed, guidance to stay on the right path, coaching and training to enhance their capabilities, and encouragement to stay motivated throughout the whole implementation journey. But although the benefits of following up with employees are clear, follow up often does not occur.

The organisation needs to create a structure to review the implementation advancement regularly and ensure it is heading in the right direction. This prevents small problems from snowballing and enables the organisation to take corrective action. Setting up a review rhythm means establishing the discipline to review if staff are making headway on the implementation on a regular and structured frequency.

Creating the review rhythm sets the structure for leaders and is critical for success. 

The difference between organisations that succeed in realizing their strategic initiatives and those that fail lies in how well they implement their plans. Successful implementation requires more than just a good strategy. It requires leaders who are disciplined, who can navigate the complexities of implementation, and who can motivate their teams to take the right actions.

By using the Strategy Implementation Roadmap and adopting the seven implementation principles, leaders can significantly increase their chances of success. Implementation is not easy, but with the right mindset and approach, it can become a powerful differentiator that drives lasting value for the organisation.

With thanks to Robin Speculand for allowing us to share this article, originally published on by Singapore Management University.

1. https://www.dvm360.com/view/strength-heart
2. https://www.mdpi.com