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Thursday, September 14, 2006

On Execution and Strategy

Some fundamentals:

  • Execution will always be more important than strategy.
  • Actions speak louder than words.
  • A fair-to-middling strategy exceptionally executed will almost always yield better bottom-line results than a great strategy poorly executed.
  • A great strategy never executed -- and it happens a lot more than any of us would like to admit -- is a lame exercise in futility.

Best example from sports: John McKay had a track record as the highly successful coach of the USC Trojans (and had moved on to coach in the NFL). A sportswriter caught McKay right after a particularly ugly loss:


"Coach McKay... What do you think of your team's execution?"

He responded: "I'm in favor of it."

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