The Six Disciplines blog has moved!

You will be automatically redirected to our new home. If that does not occur, please visit:

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Strategy Execution - The Scary Statistics

Most organizations suffer a major disconnect between strategy formulation and its execution.

And while it's more pronounced in larger enterprises because of complexity, smaller organizations need to make sure they do something (anything!) to remove the barriers to execution.

Unfortunately, the research doesn't bode well for most of us.  Consider the following:


  • 90% of well-formulated strategies fail due to poor execution. 
  • 60% of typical organizations do not link their strategic priorities to their budget.
  • Two-thirds of HR and IT organizations develop strategic plans that are not linked to the organization's strategy.
  • 85% of leadership teams spend less than 1 hour per month discussing strategy.
  • Only 27% of a typical company’s employees have access to its strategic plan.
  • 70% of middle managers and more than 90% of front-line employees have compensation that is not linked to the strategy.
  • Most devastating, 95% of employees do not understand their organization's strategy.


BOTTOMLINE: Strategy must be managed explicitly, like any other major process in an organization. In most organizations, this process either does not exist or is incomplete. However, 70% of organizations that used a formal process to manage strategy out-performed their peers.  What formal process are YOU using?

2 comments:

Samantha said...

It boggles the mind the disconnect that many organization have between the strategy plan and what most of the organization is doing. The disconnect is the reason I feel so many business today are constantly behind the ball and always looking for something new. Rather then work on the solid basics.

Nenninger Family said...

Great info.. Can you give me the source you obtained these stats from??