RSS Feeds Got a Good Strategy? Now Try to Implement It
Printer-friendly versionIn a recent article from Wharton, knowledge (reg. req) I came across an interview with Lawrence Hrebiniak about strategy execution, which is the premise for his new book. My own experience is with small businesses or ones that I have started on my own. I know that strategy is something the whole organization needs to understand in order for it to be executed. I just do not understand why anyone would believe the opposite. Apparently, some managers don't get it.
Got a Good Strategy? Now Try to Implement It - For nearly 30 years, Wharton management professor Lawrence G. Hrebiniak has taken the art of business strategy and put it under a microscope. Over time, he has brought one critical element into irrefutable focus: Creating strategy is easy, but implementing it is very difficult. In his new book, Making Strategy Work: Leading Effective Execution and Change (Wharton School Publishing), Hrebiniak presents a comprehensive model to help business leaders bridge the gap between strategy making and successful strategy execution. He challenges executives to recognize that making strategy work is more difficult than setting a strategic course - but also more important -- and he documents the obstacles that get in the way of successful performance.
The premise of the book is that "making strategy work is more difficult than strategy making.
Get this... Hrebiniak: "Only recently have people begun to realize that effective execution is a competitive business advantage. Companies are now seeing that if they execute better, they perform better."
"Another reason why it's so difficult for companies to grasp this, is that there are more people involved in executing strategy today - and execution takes longer than people expect."
Strategy is something that needs to be done every day by everybody in the business. In other words, how are the daily activities of people matching up or being coordinated with the strategy? I would be willing to wager my donuts that in most organizations employees are clueless on strategy.
Hrebiniak: "There is still the perception that smart people plan and grunts execute. When companies separate the planning and doing - that's wrong."
Hrebiniak: "Managing change has always been a problem. Look at the Wharton-Gartner Survey from the book [a joint project between Wharton and researchers at the Gartner Group that asked managers about the challenges they face]: Based on responses from 223 managers, we know that their number-one problem is the inability to manage change effectively or to overcome internal resistance to change. Why? Because change is difficult. It creates resistance. People lose power, resources, autonomy, or they perceive that they might lose autonomy.
"The real problem, though, is that people don't lay out a change plan. They don't even think about a change plan."
Funny, they don't "think about a change plan". I wonder if they even communicate to each other. What if the strategy was accessible, in plain english, to everyone in the organization. Imagine what the situation would be like if managers and front line employees used social software applications to work together and activity maps to coordinate their daily activities against a strategy.
We use some of the leading open-source web 2.0 and social software applications, which are trusted by 10,000's of sites worldwide, to deliver great business benefits.
Comments
**"Imagine what the situation would be like if employees used blogs to work together and activity maps to coordinate their daily activities against a strategy." Absolutlely, Jim!**
I also couldn't agree more with Hrebiniak's assertion that MBAs join companies with uneven development of skills. All too often in our practice, we see these same people working at the executive level - concentrating solely on strategy and identification of key initiatives. It is precisely at that point that their skills markedly fall off. It is at this point that they are significantly challenged when charged with leading the identification and development of the cross-enterprise plans necessary to drive and manifest measurable performance and intrinsic value against the prevailing strategies they worked so hard to formulate in the first place.
What Hrebiniak does not fully address, however, are the real world barriers that cause much of his theory to breakdown in practice. For instance, an executive armed with behaviors that foster execution and a full understanding of Hrebiniak's strategic execution process should, in theory, be able to execute flawlessly, correct? In reality, however, even the most executionally astute excutives are unfortunately set up to fail because of turf issues, politics, silos and the unwillingness of multiple stakeholders to agree that what matters is not complete consesus, but alignment on a shared plan of effective action. Realistically, what internal executive has the expertise, time and objectivity to conduct the politically-charged and often dicey conversations that surround cross-divisional collaboration, execution and accountability? Imagine making an internal leader (perhaps a CIO) responsible for getting beyond information sharing and actually mediating agreements among several business unit presidents with their own P&Ls to worry about. Most CIOs I know would say, "Thanks, but no thanks." It's not because they're not smart or well-intentioned. It's simply because the act of doing so could damage pre-existing relationships and possibly result in career suicide.
Hrebiniak is right, execution isn't the result of a single decision or action, but a series of integrated decisions or actions over time. I believe, however, that in the interest of driving value and performance, leadership must remain realistic about what is reasonable to expect from "integrators" working within the matrix.
Linda Saggau
CEO
Collaboract Consulting