Businesses must constantly adapt to the ever-accelerating pace of change in their environment: advances in technology, new competitors, changing customer needs/expectations, constantly evolving standards and constraints, etc.
A number of studies have shown that the main problem businesses encounter in adapting to these changes lies in their ability to execute their strategy rapidly. (“The Conference Board”, 2010 by Linda Barrington; Harvard Business Review June 2008 by Booz & Company; Michael Jarrett & Quy Huy, INSEAD program directors, etc.).
But what are the obstacles to executing the strategy, and how can they be overcome?
First, it is important to define the different stages in the execution of the strategy.
The first step in executing the strategy is to formalize it, i.e. to choose what we believe to be, at a given moment in time, the best pathway towards achieving our vision. That pathway is determined on the basis of the information in our possession, but also on a certain number of assumptions we make about the future. Most businesses have a strategy that is formalized to a greater or lesser degree.
The next step in executing the strategy is then to roll out/communicate/cascade this strategy, this pathway, to the rest of the organization. This is why we have to be able to make the strategy simple and easy to understand by all the organization’s stakeholders. It is at this stage that key strategic axes translate first into strategic objectives and then into individual annual objectives. All kinds of tools are available to align individual objectives with strategic objectives. Some organizations may have more difficulty than others in translating key strategic outlines into concrete action, but most businesses are generally more or less successful in making that alignment, so the biggest obstacle to execution does not lie here.
The explanation is to be found at the next stage: steering. The strategy must adapt and evolve in the light of the obstacles encountered/results achieved. One thing is sure; nothing will turn out as expected! Markets shift with dizzying speed, and the state of permanent flux in which we live virtually guarantees that the assumptions we made when formalizing the strategy stand very little chance of holding good over time. The strategy needs constant adaptation in the light of the results achieved through implementation but also in the light of the changes taking place on our markets now AND in the future. So decisions are needed on the changes to be made. Decisions are taken every day, at every level of the organization, but there are some decisions that need the management team to be involved. The problem is that it can take a long time for information to filter back to management. We all know the CEO is generally the last to hear the bad news. So the management needs a tool that can alert them to potential problems that only they can solve.
In addition, the decisions that require input from the management team are mostly cross-disciplinary in nature (otherwise, in most cases, they would be dealt with “inside the silo”). The flexibility required when steering execution, however, will need not only swift adaptation from the whole of your organization but also coordinated adaptation to get the company as a whole, and simultaneously, “back on track”. The tool we mentioned above must therefore favor the dynamic of the management team and not the kind of individual operation within silos that too often prevails when strategic objectives are being rolled out.
For this reason, the phase of steering the execution of the strategy can only be completed if there is a real dynamic within the management team and an unswerving team-based approach to anticipating and adapting changes in the strategy but also to uniting all energies behind this process of permanent change.
Conclusion:
The difficulties associated with the execution of the strategy often occur during the steering phase. And the tool designed to help you anticipate problems, encourage the dynamic of the management team and adapt and develop your strategy in the light of realities on the ground? That tool exists: it goes by the name of the SteerVision Center™.