Strategy, Planning and Execution
Volume 2022, Chapter XII, Number 002
Dear ,
This Week’s One Great Thing: My Thoughts on Strategy, Planning and Execution
The path to an organisation’s success and sustainability generally go through three phases:
- the phase of strategy, having a particular theory for winning in the marketplace;
- the phase of planning breaking down the strategy into areas of focus;
- and lastly, the phase of execution, the actual day to day, nitty gritty accomplishment and implementation of strategy.
Those in positions of Strategy are usually the ones on the Upper Tier of management and leadership. They are usually led by a visionary or a group of visionaries who point the organisation to a North Star that will energise and rally the organisation. The strategy role has to do with clarity of vision.
Those in positions of Planning are usually upper tier to mid-tier managers, who break down the theory into actual ::areas of work:: that the organisation can focus on - these areas of work are then broken down into priorities, assigned to people, put into a timeline, ready for execution. The planning role has to do with a coherence of mission. Mission coherence is critical because while organisations are good with vertical alignment (communicating plans from top to bottom), departments and groups within the organisation usually have a break down in horizontal alignment (aligning work among departments).
Those in positions of Execution are everyone in the organisation who implement what has been planned, turn the plans into projects, and then track in a project management system to monitor implementation. The execution role has to do with excellence of implementation.
Some reflections on this:
- The path to success are three distinct activities that should be respected as such. Mixing up the three activities create problems. For example, being confused about strategy and planning is a common mistake of organisations. Roger Martin points out that we often conflate the two - in Strategic Planning sessions for example, no real strategy is actually happening, just a lot of planning. And jumping to planning, without a clear strategy set in place, is one sure way to spend energy but not guarantee a win. Jumping straight into execution, without planning, also runs counter to good management practice because as the old adage goes: when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
- In Strategic Theory and Agile Management, once a strategy is set in place, organisations need to build the ability (and develop the agility) to change plans during execution when this is necessary (this is called rapid iteration), but the Winning Strategy —once this is clear— should remain. Iteration (or adjustment) is a hallmark of well-oiled organisations.
- Since Winning Strategies are designed to take a long time to execute, because of the nature of the strategy, or because of the nature of the industry that the organisation is in, organisations need to build good planning and execution processes (with regular cadences) to guide the Planning and Execution phases.
Because the three are distinct — then we can also deduce that there are potentially three failure points in this path to execution. It’s good to know these so we can manage and mitigate them:
a) Failure of Strategy: organisations fail when the Strategy is not a winning strategy, or when your competition has a better strategy.
b) Failure of Planning: organisations can fail when the Planning is weak. There are usually three reasons for this:
i. when the Winning Strategy is not clearly defined and broken down into priority areas that support it.
ii. when there is a communication failure within the organisation (called ALIGNMENT in OD) — usually vertical alignment is done well (top to bottom), but horizontal alignment is problematic (departments to department alignment),
iii. when resources (both manpower and financial) are not allocated properly (too many priorities vs available resources), iv. Or when the plans lack flexibility that it fails to change even when the external environment calls for it.
c) Failure of Execution: organisations can fail when Execution fails. Execution is the focused effort and energy to implement plans and having a winning strategy and a great plan does not guarantee success. Execution will eat strategy for breakfast, because strategy is theory, but this theory needs to be enacted.
i. The people assigned to execute may not execute well; specially when they are given multiple priorities (too much on their plate), or when they are doing a lot of business as usual admin work that does not move the needle in terms of the winning strategy. Quantity (vs Quality) work is one of the usual reason for failed execution.
ii. A Harvard Business study surveyed thousands of middle managers and found out that only 55% of them can name even one of their company’s top five priorities. Communicating your priorities does not mean employees (and in this case managers!) understand your priorities. Communication does not equal understanding. In this same study, only 9% of the managers say they can rely on other departments all the time. When you’re in the execution phase and you’re not horizontally aligned, this creates creases in processes that have repercussions in both personal and departmental relationships down the line.
These failure points are remedied via good organisational development for them to become points of success. For an organisation to be successful, you need to focus on three things: clarity of vision (strategy), coherence of mission (planning), and excellence in implementation (execution).
And just as in organisations, so it is in your personal life: we should not mix up the three activities so they do not confuse us. The invitation is not to conflate our planning with our understanding of our personal mission (some call it vocation). There's so much activity in our life but we sometimes fail to ask whether these activities still add to our mission or whether we need to pause and catch our breath (the word used in spiritual language is RECOLLECTION: which reminds us to collect again our scattered selves). Once a general direction is clear (this is a big condition), it is always good to stay the course.
And yes, it is always good to have a personal strategic planning session about your life. If you can do it for your business, it is only fair to give the same attention to your life (or your marriage, or your family). If only more people have the clarity of vision clarity of vision (strategy), the coherence of mission (planning), and excellence in implementation (execution) in their personal lives, what a world that would be!
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More Great Stuff:
The Difference Between Development Work and Charity Work
- The paper shows that adding “psychosocial” elements–“life skills training” or “community sensitization on aspirations and social norms”–to anti-poverty programs might be cost-effective addition to anti-poverty programs and have a high rate of return. But that is not how, in fact, poverty has been substantially reduced in any country, ever. The massive reductions in poverty that we have seen both historically in the rich countries and more recently in the developing world has been through raising the productivity of the place so that individuals can use their resources to generate higher levels of income.
- Understanding the difference between Development Work and Charity Work in the macro-level may also help us understand the work we do with the poor on the personal and the societal level.
And this great reminder from Shawn Blanc:
“Don’t stress the fuzzy, outer edges of life and projects.
You won’t ever make all the edges of your life smooth and finished. Even as we grow and mature in our life, the edges also get pushed out and they remain fuzzy. Don’t worry about "fixing" those outer edges — they will always be there. Instead focus on the center and on the core — the things that truly matter — and focus on making those stronger and better.”
Email me your thoughts about this! I get your response in my personal email so I read them all. Just give me some time to respond. :-)
Now pause, get yourself to a window, look up to the sky, smile, and have a great day! Look forward to send you another letter next week!
☕ eric santillan