Five cardinal sins in strategic delivery

Five cardinal sins in strategic delivery

A well-crafted strategy without excellent execution is as worthless as a comb given to a bold man!
Because of an inadequate implementation process, leaders often forego the momentous
opportunities they intended to capture with bold blueprints.

According to my research, all types of organizations routinely fail to transform plans into reality for
at least five interrelated reasons (see illustration). Leaders must become aware of these
showstoppers to take effective preventive measures. Only then can they excel in what I call
"strategic delivery", the discipline of conducting business according to plan whenever possible. As
with all major failures, the problems start at the top.

1. Top leaders' disbelief in strategy

Many CEOs design pro-forma strategies simply because they feel compelled to conform to the
expectations of the investment community, media and other constituencies. Yet in their lion
hearts, the movers and shakers often doubt the value of strategy and consider the planning
cycles a waste of time. They might have been disappointed by conceited fresh MBA graduates
who developed blueprints that had no connection with reality. Besides, experience might tell
these veterans at the top that all plans are outdated by the time they are printed and that success
requires reacting to the challenges of the day. As with many other problems in strategy design
and execution, these conclusions stem from wrong thinking, such as overgeneralizing.

Because of strategic cynicism, the unwilling executioners at the top are prone to hide all planning
documents in their drawer and manage by intuition only. In more benign cases, they may suffer
from strategic lopsidedness: They erroneously believe that implementation is a mere operational
issue, which does not deserve their attention, since it will take care of itself. Without committed
leaders acting as role models who make implementation the top priority, it will not even start.

2. Absence of strategic chunking

Those leaders who are willing to implement strategy might fail in the process of what I call
"strategic chunking", that is, decomposing it into a parsimonious set of appropriate milestones
and action bits, as well as cascading these integrated parcels down the organization. A series of
what could be termedend targets" is particularly pernicious.

Many executives embrace moderate targets for the upcoming year. They find many excuses for
such self-restraint, such as the need to gear up for change and other fairytales. Their modesty in
the short term is counterbalanced by extremely ambitious targets after a magical inflection point
in the distant future. Alas, they cannot explain why things should change so suddenly and
dramatically. The shape of the resulting curve showing explosive performance improvements after
a period of sluggish growth resembles a banana. The executives repeat the "tipping point
stratagem" in the subsequent planning periods and thus postpone the pain induced by stretching
indefinitely. Without highly motivating short-term targets, mediocrity is ensured.

Besides, many leaders fail to kick-start the implementation process effectively either because
they procrastinate or launch a plethora of programs that confuses people and diffuses
responsibility.

3. Individual and organizational misfit

Strategy implementation also fails because of misalignment. Many top leaders never leave their
strategy drawing board and are thus prone to ignore the crucial human factor during the
implementation stage. New strategies threaten the status quo. Quite a few employees are likely
to lose privileges in the short-run. Their resistance is going to increase over time if their concerns
are not alleviated when they are still manageable.

In addition, the staff might be unable to deliver the envisaged unique value. For example, the
ability to provide superb customer service above all hinges on a consistently cheerful attitude,
which is difficult to develop through training. The leaders of many state-owned enterprises in
transition economies found that the army of old employees lacked this mental disposition; it was
up to the next generation of front-line workers to improve the customer interface. Besides, the
organizational setup might hinder implementation. The leaders of many centralized Japanese
companies find it difficult to implement blueprints in which high responsiveness at the local level
is singled out as a differentiator. In many cases, the corporate culture is also a bottleneck.
Moreover, the strategy might not be backed up by sufficient financial resources and manpower.

4. Lack of strategic flexibility

According to a jocular tale, in the process of charting a railway track on a map of Russia, the czar
once lost hold of his ruler when drawing a line between Saint Petersburg and Moscow. This slip
proved to be consequential: The obedient imperial officials built the rail track exactly as projected
by their supreme ruler, including the accidental spike!

Leaders and followers rarely find the optimum balance between sticking to a plan and changing it
when it proves ineffective. The end of the tunnel is often near when things appear to be worst. But
quite a few leaders failed because they were dogmatic about their pet strategies.

5. Inadequate performance management

Many executives fail to conceive meaningful "accomplishment metrics" and do not collect
valuable data. Oftentimes, they lack the systems that could provide them with vital statistics such
as real margins of products or customers, which reflect even spontaneous gifts offered by front-
line salesmen. Leaders in other companies are drowning in the information that byzantine
software generates. These programs are often designed by ambitious IT staff or consultants who
believe that the respect they earn rises in proportion with the complexity of their creations. Many
companies fail to keep track of results in real-time. They may have an annual performance
review, after which nobody talks about excellence. Besides, leaders often fail to take decisive
action when the red lights are flashing. Many executives neither root out the underperformers nor
reward excellent individuals. One reason is their misplaced socialist ethos of treating everybody
equally or the exclusive focus on team performance. Some simply fear rocking the boat. In
addition, incentives often reward the wrong behavior.

Choosing to implement strategies with skill and determination should not be merely the result of
groundless buoyancy gaining victory over empirical knowledge. A core competence in the pivotal
discipline of strategic delivery, achieved by abstaining from the five cardinal sins committed in the
process of transforming blueprints into reality, will endow leaders with a competitive advantage
that is difficult to emulate.
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"Prof. Kai on Strategic Leadership" Column Number 8. Kai-Alexander Schlevogt

(D.Phil. Oxford) is a professor of strategy and leadership at the National University of
Singapore (NUS) Business School and author of The Art of Chinese Management
(Oxford University Press). Email: schlevogt@schlevogt.com; website:
www.schlevogt.com