Excellence In Execution

Description

HOW to Implement Your Strategy

“Many people see execution as the toughest part of the strategy-execution equation. I see it as the most exciting and appealing part. Why? Because it’s in the execution you realize the results, recognize the financial benefits and deliver on the strategy’s phenomenal opportunities.”
– Robin Speculand, from the Introduction

More strategy executions fail than succeed and leaders are demanding to know “HOW” to deliver on their strategy promises to stakeholders. Most organizations spend too much time developing strategy and too little time on implementation. When leaders address how to execute strategy, it’s not always with the same energy, drive and conviction they applied to crafting it.

In EXCELLENCE IN EXECUTION: How To Implement Your Strategy, Speculand fills the knowledge gap that has been created from leaders being taught how to plan and not how to execute. The book is packed with tools, techniques, case studies and downloadable templates.

Leaders spend less than ten hours a month discussing strategy. One-third of leaders rate their organization “poor” or “very poor” in the ability to implement. Two-thirds of leaders believe their organization has the talent to achieve excellence in execution, but one-third rate their organization “poor” or “very poor” at it. Only one in five organizations review its execution monthly.

EXCELLENCE IN EXECUTION equips business leaders with the components they need to execute strategy well. It features:

182 questions designed to create an execution plan
72 Powerful Execution Tips
12 Checklists of questions to ask and actions to take
18 Toolkits
Strategy execution case studies
Video introduction to key chapters from QR codes

EXCELLENCE IN EXECUTION provides opportunities for leaders to transform their approach to strategy execution through tools such as:

Strategy Cadence
Execution Juxtaposition
Decoding the Execution Challenge
Mavericks Network
Review Rhythm
Three Broad Themes of Execution

The Three Broad Themes of Execution are the backbone of a company’s strategy implementation journey:

Create Awareness – Leaders need to spread a sense of urgency throughout the organization to adopt and execute a new strategy, with both emotional and logical reasons to appeal to both people’s hearts and minds. This involves first explaining why, and then how, the organization needs to transform.

Build Excellence – It’s critical to communicate what’s working, including the lessons learned. To ensure the new strategy is being tracked properly, measures must be reviewed and changed when required. Because an organization’s culture drives the way the execution happens, all aspects of its culture need to be examined. Leaders must make the execution their own. Building engagement also requires empowering people to innovate their work processes.

Follow Through – Leaders need to constantly check that what was agreed on was acted on, the right outcomes were achieved, and people were recognized for their contribution. If they don’t frequently reinforce employees’ contributions, people will likely slip back into doing what they were doing before the launch of the strategy.

Each step of the implementation journey creates an opportunity to dramatically improve employee and customer engagement, culture, performance, and profits. Leaders can seize this opportunity by recognizing why execution has previously failed and what needs to happen differently to succeed. They can then lead the organization through the journey, delivering on strategy promises to customers and stakeholders along the way. “By crafting a winning strategy and achieving excellence in execution, you have a powerful business differentiator over your competitors and the payoff is tremendous,” says Speculand.

EXCELLENCE IN EXECUTION transforms the way business leaders think about strategy execution and how to approach it by provoking them to take actions that can reverse the staggering failure rate of execution and assist in their organization’s overall success.