The Failure or Success of Strategy Execution
Strategy commonly focuses on planning to establish objectives, resources, and end business system results that establish or advance market and investor winning value propositions. Often managed as an annual process, strategic planning commonly leads to budgeting, forecasts, scenario assessments, market and financial analyses, and establishing objectives. Plans are reviewed and approved according to management and governance and then implemented. Observation finds that something more is occurring regarding Strategy that creates the significant differences in performance amongst companies.
Planning and execution are related but different activities and skills. Strategic planning is essential to establish objectives, priorities, and actions for resources.
"A management framework is the differentiating factor."
Commonly, strategic plans are established and then pursued under the same operating systems “in place”. This has a high probability of success if the plan is to pursue results that the company commonly maintains. Alternatively, if the plan is to pursue new market dynamics or goals, executing under a legacy operating framework may deliver a predictable result, under-performance. What are high performance companies doing that leads to compounded results over long periods of time and market conditions?
An organization of any size has a management operating system or framework. Management systems may be explicitly framed, understood and employed, but more commonly systems are implicitly practiced, specific person reliant, regulatory and disclosure driven, and retrospective. The larger, more dispersed, and multifaceted the organization the more essential an explicit and applied execution framework.
Do you know your organization’s operating framework? What are its dimensions, key factors, what is the management team “managing” for performance? What is needed in your operating framework to execute the requirements of the strategic plan? Are you expecting new results from an organization running from outdated operating system? What can management do to understand and advance their execution operating framework? The purpose of the July 28, 2011 Houston Strategy Forum is to discuss Management Framework as a differentiating factor for strategic performance success or failure.
Example Management Frameworks
| Ralston Purina (1) |
Koch Industries (2) |
Cohegic (3) |
CCG Consulting (4) |
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| Stand Tall - Physical |
Vision |
Spirit |
Organizational S-Curve |
| Think Tall - Mental |
Virtues & Talents |
Transforming |
Leadership S-Curve |
| Smile Tall - Social |
Incentives |
Direction |
Personal S-Curve |
| Live Tall - Faith |
Knowledge Processess |
Engine |
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| Action |
Decision Rights |
Execution |
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Continuously |
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References:
1) I Dare You (Four Fold Development) , William H. Danforth (Founder & Chairman Ralston Purina Company), 3rd Edition 1991 (originally published 1931)
2) The Science of Success (How Market Based Management Built the World’s Largest Private Company), Charles G. Koch (Chairman & CEO, Koch Industries, Inc.), 1st Edition 2007
3) The Coherent Company (The Struggle for the Next Level), Ravi Kathuria, 2010
4) Executing Strategy (From Boardroom to Frontline), Timothy C. Daughtery & Gary R. Casselman, 2009
James Dumler
Senior Vice President, Strategy and Business Development
CenterPoint Energy