The Six Disciplines blog has moved!

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

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Executing Your Strategy: Avoiding The Epic Fail

With all the bad news bombarding us daily, it's time to get control over the things we can do, and do everything we can during times of uncertainty, to avoid the epic fail.

To wit, here's a short refresher on why companies fail:

Failure to understand the customer
• Why they buy, what they want (real need for the product/service)

Failure to understand the resources, time required to execute the strategy
• Can the staff, equipment, and processes handle the stated strategy?
• Failure to develop new employee and leadership skills

Failure to obtain senior leader commitment
• Failure to get management involved right from the start
• Failure to obtain sufficient company resources to accomplish task

Failure to obtain team member commitment
• The strategy is not well explained to employees
• No incentives given to workers to embrace the strategy

Failure to manage change
• Inadequate understanding of the internal resistance to change
• Lack of vision on the relationships between processes, technology and organization

Failure to focus
• Inability or unwillingness to make choices which are true to the strategic mission (i.e. to do fewer things, better), leads to mediocrity, inability to compete

Failure to execute the plan
• No follow-through after initial planning
• No tracking of progress against the plan
• No accountability / consequences for the above

BOTTOMLINE: Start today...resolve to focus and act on the things you DO have control over (internal issues), on the highest priority activities you can - you'll find they all revolve around executing your strategy.

No comments: