Executing

Strategy

Harvard Business Press

Boston, Massachusetts

ISBN-13: 978-1-4221-5251-5
Executing Strategy
 Pocket Mentor Series

The Pocket Mentor series offers immediate solutions to

common challenges managers face on the job every day.
Each book in the series is packed with handy tools, self-tests,
and real-life examples to help you identify your strengths
and weaknesses and hone critical skills. Whether you’re at
your desk, in a meeting, or on the road, these portable
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with greater speed, savvy, and effectiveness.

Books in the series:

Leading Teams Managing Crises

Running Meetings Managing Up
Managing Time Becoming a New
Managing Projects Manager
Giving Feedback Managing Difficult
Coaching People Interactions
Understanding Finance Hiring an Employee
Dismissing an Employee Making Decisions
Preparing a Business Plan Managing Diversity
Managing Stress Executing Innovation
Delegating Work Performance Appraisal
Shaping Your Career Preparing a Budget
Persuading People Executing Strategy
Executing
Strategy
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Harvard Business Press

Boston, Massachusetts
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 Contents

Mentor’s Message: The Power of a Well-Executed Strategy xi

Executing Strategy: The Basics 1

The Role of Strategy 3
A big-picture view of what strategy is and why it’s important.
What is strategy? 4

Why is strategy important? 5

How is strategy formulated? 5

This book’s focus 6

A note about terminology 6

The Strategic Plan: Four Key Elements 7

Spotlight on crucial elements of a strategy plan.
Direction statement 8

Strategic objectives 9

Priority issues 11

Action plans 12

vii
 The Strategic Planning Process: Five Steps 15
A look at the steps required to create a strategic plan.
Step 1: Analyze external and internal factors 17

Step 2: Perform SWOT analyses 19

Step 3: Draft priority issues 22

Step 4: Develop high-level action plans 24

Step 5: Finalize the plan 25

Your Strategic-Initiative Action Plan 27

Ideas for switching from planning to execution.
Components of the action plan 28

A sample action plan 29

Defining Objectives and Metrics 33

A closer look at this element of your action plan.
Identifying key result areas 35

Determining measures for success 35

Writing objectives 36

Identifying the Resources Needed 39

Suggestions for getting what you require to execute your plan.
Estimating your resource needs 40

Thinking long term 41

viii Contents
Clarifying Interlocks 43
Tips for articulating interdependencies in executing your plan.
The need for cross-functional collaboration 44

The challenge of coordinating across groups 45

Keeping Your Action Plan on Course 49

Ideas for staying on track while executing your plan.
Reviewing progress 50

Understanding the causes of misalignment 51

Anticipating misalignment 54

Establishing Accountability 57
Advice for securing this key to execution success.
Identifying responsibilities 58

Gathering input from others 59

Making judgment calls 61

Creating an Environment for Execution Excellence 63

Recommendations for laying a foundation for success.
Developing a strategic mind-set in your group 64

Considering your culture 65

Fostering leadership 65

Identifying and addressing resistance 66

Training people for the future 68

Contents ix
 Evaluating and Rewarding Performance 69
Tips for knowing when your group has executed strategy effectively.
Using quantitative criteria 70

Using qualitative criteria 71

Rewarding desired results 72

Tips and Tools 75

Tools for Executing Strategy 77

Worksheets to help you conduct a SWOT analysis, develop an action
plan, determine objectives from key result areas, assess alignment,
and create an environment for execution excellence.

Test Yourself 87
A helpful review of concepts presented in this guide. Take it before
and after you’ve read the guide, to see how much you’ve learned.
Answers to test questions 91

To Learn More 95
List of articles and books if you want to go more deeply into the
topic.

Sources for Executing Strategy 103

x Contents
 Mentor’s Message:
The Power of a
Well-Executed Strategy

Most strategies (plans for producing specific business outcomes)

fail to deliver their promised results—whether it’s higher prof-
itability, greater market share, better employee engagement, or
some other desired benefit. Why such disappointment? The prob-
lem usually doesn’t lie in the strategy planning process; it lies in
the execution process—the steps taken to carry out the strategic
plan. Even the most brilliant strategy is useless unless people
throughout a unit or an organization can put the strategy into
action.
This book introduces you to the strategy planning process, but
then emphasizes the steps you can take as a manager to ensure that
the strategy your company or unit has devised delivers as promised.

C. Davis Fogg, Mentor

Dave Fogg is a keynote speaker and strategic planning consultant who
specializes in developing and implementing corporate strategic plans.
He is a former General Manager of Johnston & Murphy and president
of Bausch & Lomb’s Consumer Products Divisions. He has taught
strategic planning, strategic implementation, and general management

xi
 courses at Vanderbilt, Columbia, Emory, MIT, Penn State, and the
University of Wisconsin. He is the author of three books: Diagnostic
Marketing, Team-Based Strategic Planning, and Implementing Your
Strategic Plan. He has also published a series of strategic manuals.
Leading Your Organization Through Strategic and Departmental
Planning provides step-by-step instructions on how to conduct
and facilitate the entire planning process.

xii Mentor’s Message

Executing
Strategy:
The Basics
The Role of
Strategy

3
E veryone seems to recognize how important strategy is to a
company. Yet there is considerable debate on just what
strategy is and how to create and execute it—how to put it into
action. The sections below address these gaps.

What is strategy?

This book views strategy as a process that spurs major change so

that an organization can achieve outstanding results. Strategy is
about understanding what you do, looking out over the long-term
future to determine what you want to become, and—most impor-
tant—focusing on how you plan to get there.
For example, consider a company that makes video games. Its
primary business is to entertain people. As the company looks into
the future, it might determine that one of its long-term priorities
is to have its brand name known throughout the world. The com-
pany’s strategy would therefore focus on how the organization
plans to grow its business and brand, and how it intends to enter
global markets over the coming years.
Strategy can be viewed as a blend of art and science. It is an art in
that strategy requires creative thought, an ability to identify alterna-
tive future states, and strong communication skills to inspire and
engage those who will implement the strategy. It is a science in that
it requires managers to collect and analyze information that they
can then turn into action.

4 Executing Strategy
 Why is strategy important?

It’s not enough for a company to develop a successful product or

service. Without a strategy, an organization is rudderless—and
vulnerable to business changes as well as competitive threats.
A sound strategy, skillfully carried out, fosters significant shifts in
the way a company does business, and these shifts distinguish a
company from its competitors. By guiding a company’s ongoing
evolution, strategy provides the necessary information and direc-
tion for managers to define their work—and help their organiza-
tion remain competitive.

Every moment spent planning saves three or four in execution.

—Crawford Greenwalt

How is strategy formulated?

Broadly speaking, strategy is achieved through two fundamental

processes: planning and execution. Many companies involve both
senior management and business units in the strategic planning
processes. Units are involved because they house tremendous knowl-
edge about an organization and can make informed recommenda-
tions about what a company should be doing and where it should be
going. Furthermore, when units are included in planning, they are
more likely to support and carry out the plans that are created.
In short, units are the execution centers of an organization.
They have the leadership, people, skills, and money needed to
carry out a strategic plan. Without their support, even a brilliant
strategy will go nowhere.

The Role of Strategy 5

 Organizations that fail to include units when planning strategy
typically produce results inferior to those that do. By undertaking
the planning process together, senior management and units en-
sure that a company’s strategies—corporate and unit—are tightly
aligned and that successful execution can follow.

This book’s focus

This book looks briefly at how companies undertake the strategic

planning process and then examines in more detail how strategy is
executed within an organization. We’ll approach the topic of strat-
egy execution through the eyes of a manager or an individual
within a unit—not from the perspective of senior management.

A note about terminology

Each company plans and executes strategy in its own unique way.
As a result, the way the processes unfold and the terms associated
with these processes vary from company to company. This book
examines the key elements of the strategic planning and execution
processes and defines terms broadly to reach as many people as
possible.

6 Executing Strategy
The Strategic Plan:
Four Key Elements

7
B efore discussing the strategic planning process, it’s helpful
to understand the elements of a strategic plan—the out-
growth of the planning process. While strategic plans vary, they
generally contain the following components:

• Direction statement

• Strategic objectives

• Priority issues

• Action plans

Organizations may use different terms for these components and

may differ in how they describe them. However, most organiza-
tions provide an array of information about their strategy and, in
broad terms, explain how they plan to achieve it.

Direction statement

One does not plan and then try to make circumstances fit those plans.
One tries to make plans fit the circumstances.
—George S. Patton Jr.

A direction statement acts as a guide for an organization’s actions

and thinking. While this statement can be captured in different
formats—ranging from a succinct one- or two-page document to

8 Executing Strategy
a variety of informal communications—it usually provides the
following information about an organization:

• Mission: the organization’s purpose

• Vision: the organization’s deeply desired future

• Business definition: the firm’s existing and envisioned

products, services, geographic distribution, technology,
customers, and markets

• Competitive advantages: customer needs that the organiza-

tion plans to meet better than competitors do

• Core competencies: the tangible assets (e.g., manufacturing

plants) and intangible ones (such as R&D prowess) the com-
pany will leverage to gain competitive advantage

• Values: the driving beliefs that define a company’s culture

(e.g., innovation) and that support the organization’s future
competitive advantage

Strategic objectives

Strategic objectives allow a company to measure how it is per-

forming in key result areas (KRAs)—those areas where the com-
pany must achieve superior results to execute its long-term
strategy. Key result areas often come directly from a company’s
direction statement.
For example, if a company’s vision is global expansion, then
it will want to measure success in that area. Areas for which a

The Strategic Plan 9

?
What Would YOU Do?
How Will Information Technology
Contribute?

J AKE HAS RECENTLY become a manager of an infor-

mation technology (IT) group. During the strategic plan-
ning process, senior management has identified the company’s
cost structure as a weakness that needs to be addressed for the
company to remain competitive. Senior management has estab-
lished a corresponding strategic objective: “Reduce costs 5 percent
annually throughout the organization for the next three years.”
As part of strategic planning, senior management has asked
the company’s units to find ways to address this cost-structure
problem and propose other issues that need attention. Jake is
wondering how best to begin complying with this request.
What would YOU do? The mentor will suggest a solution in
What You COULD Do.

company might set strategic objectives are market position, cus-

tomer loyalty, quality, service, innovation, and human capital.
Management must decide how it will measure success in the
KRAs and then set objectives for those measures. For instance, if

10 Executing Strategy
customer loyalty is a KRA, it might be measured by a customer
satisfaction index. The corresponding objective might be “Raise
the customer satisfaction index from 89 to 96 in the next three
years.”

Priority issues

Priority issues are a company’s primary instruments of action.

These are the key issues that surface during the strategic planning
process—for example, a weakness to be addressed or an opportu-
nity to be seized.
Priority issues typically relate to competitive concerns—the
products and services a company needs to create to add value for
its customers, the internal process changes needed to support a
company’s strategy, and the skills and resources needed to create
new value and enhance business processes. Common priority is-
sues are costs, service, new markets and products, geographic ex-
pansion, acquisitions, divestitures, organizational structure, core
competencies and processes, new technologies, training and de-
velopment, and information systems.
The successful implementation of a company’s strategy hinges
on turning priority issues into high-level action plans and delegat-
ing those plans to units or cross-functional teams. To illustrate, a
company might determine that market share is a priority issue
and set an objective of increasing it by 10 percent in the next three
years. A marketing unit might be asked to develop action plans
to determine how to “acquire competitors that will add at least
5 percent in niches in which the company is now weak.”

The Strategic Plan 11

 Action plans

Priority issues are translated into high-level action plans for

strategic initiatives (also known as projects or programs). Action
plans briefly describe the specific steps the company needs to take
to accomplish its priority issues—and thereby achieve its objec-
tives. A single priority issue might spawn two or three action
plans. For example, if cost is a priority issue, it may yield three ac-
tion plans: a plan for overhead costs, one for operating costs, and
another for selling and marketing costs.
A high-level action plan for a strategic initiative typically in-
cludes descriptions of these elements:

• The priority issue and why it’s important

• Objectives expressed in specific metrics and time frames

• Key steps involved in achieving the priority issue

• Resources required

• Interlocking requirements involving other units

• Anticipated cost and gain

An organization’s strategic plan results from the strategic planning

process.

12 Executing Strategy
?
What You COULD Do
Remember Jake’s concern about how to support
senior management’s top priority issues?

Here’s what the mentor suggests:

The first step is for Jake and his group to analyze external and
internal information—for example, market segmentation (exter-
nal) and core processes (internal). He and his team should then
conduct a SWOT analysis, that is, an evaluation of his group’s
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. From these
analyses, priority issues will emerge—in addition to the one that
has been already delegated by senior management. Jake and his
group will narrow the list of priority issues down to three or four
and submit them to senior management for review. Once these
are approved, Jake and his team will need to create high-level
action plans that support each of the priority issues.

The Strategic Plan 13

 The Strategic
Planning Process:
Five Steps

15
T he strategic planning process is the primary vehicle for
achieving strategic alignment across an organization and
ensuring the effective execution of a company’s strategy. The re-
sult of the planning process is a strategic plan.
The strategic planning process typically begins with extensive
research and analysis that helps senior management zero in on the
top three or four priority issues that the company needs to tackle
to be successful in the long term. For each priority issue, manage-
ment asks units and teams to create high-level action plans. Once
these action plans are developed, the company’s high-level strate-
gic objectives and direction statement are further clarified.
Strategic planning consists of five steps:

1. Analyze external and internal factors.

2. Perform SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and

threats) analyses.

3. Draft priority issues.

4. Develop high-level action plans.

5. Finalize the plan.

While this process may seem linear and straightforward, strategic

planning is anything but. It’s an iterative process that takes time and
requires a series of back-and-forth communications between senior
management and units, whereby all parties examine, discuss, and

16 Executing Strategy
refine the plan. As a result, various planning streams often happen
in parallel.

I have always found that plans are useless, but planning

is indispensable.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower

How does the strategic planning process begin for a unit? It

varies from company to company. Often, a unit will begin with
certain strategic objectives and priority issues that have already
been determined and delegated by senior management. For exam-
ple, senior management might have a priority that focuses on
global markets and may delegate this issue to the appropriate
units. A unit that receives this priority will then factor it into its
strategic planning. In other cases, a unit will embark on the plan-
ning process without any predetermined priority issues.
Let’s look more closely now at each step in the planning process.

Step 1: Analyze external and internal factors

A unit begins its planning process with research and analysis. It

analyzes factors such as trends and forces—both external and in-
ternal to the organization—and assesses their future impact on
the unit. Trends typically describe a pattern of behavior and occur
over long periods, while forces describe abrupt or disruptive
changes that tend to occur more quickly.
Considering both external and internal factors is essential—
because they clarify the business world in which the unit operates,
enabling the unit to better envision its desired future. Analyzing

The Strategic Planning Process 17

external factors surfaces potential opportunities and threats, while
analyzing internal factors surfaces strengths and weaknesses.
External trends and forces include the following:

• Market: developments in the marketplace in areas such as

segmentation, customer needs, and competitive advantage

• Technology: electronic commerce and other developments

related to technology

• Legislation: new laws, legislative control, regulations, and

government intervention

• Partnerships: alliances with outside firms, vendors, and

business associates

• Culture: varying workforce ethics for different people

Analyzing market segmentation and customer needs is especially

important in developing a strategic plan. For this analysis, a unit
researches market segments—groups of customers within a broad
market and whose needs and wants are similar—and asks ques-
tions such as these: How are markets segmented now—and
how might they be segmented in the long term? What segments
should the company target? What gaps must be filled to beat the
competition?
Internal trends and forces include the following:

• Core competencies: the status of the company’s assets,

expertise, and skills needed to yield superior performance

• Core processes: the status of the processes needed to do

business and deliver competitive advantage

18 Executing Strategy
 • Financial measures: spending history, baseline forecasts,
portfolio analysis, return on assets

• Key result areas: the history of the company’s performance

in areas such as innovation, customer satisfaction, employee
retention, and operating results

• Management: how the company determines accountability,

delegates decision making, uses teams, and rewards
performance

• Organizational culture: the values, attitudes, and shared

beliefs of the organization’s employees

Step 2: Perform SWOT analyses

Analyzing external and internal factors informs the next step in

the process, a SWOT analysis—identifying the company’s or unit’s
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

• Strengths: capabilities that enable your company or unit to

perform well and that need to be leveraged

• Weaknesses: characteristics that prohibit your company or

unit from performing well and that must be addressed

• Opportunities: trends, forces, events, and ideas that your

company or unit can capitalize on

• Threats: possible events or forces, outside of your control,

that your company or unit needs to plan for or decide how
to mitigate

The Strategic Planning Process 19

Steps for conducting a SWOT analysis
1. Select an individual to facilitate the SWOT analysis.
2. Brainstorm a company or unit’s strengths. Go around the
room and solicit ideas from participants. Areas of strength for
a company or unit include leadership abilities, decision-making
abilities, innovation, productivity, quality, service, efficiency,
technological processes, and so forth. Record all suggestions on
a flip chart. Avoid duplicate entries. Make it clear that some is-
sues may appear on more than one list. For example, a company
or unit may have a strength in an area such as customer service,
but may have a weakness or deficiency in that area as well. At
this point, the goal is to capture as many ideas on the flip charts
as possible. Evaluating the strengths will take place later.
3. Consolidate ideas. Post all flip charts pages on a wall. While
every effort may have been taken to avoid duplicate entries, some
ideas will overlap. Consolidate duplicate points by asking the
group which items can be combined under the same subject. Re-
sist the temptation to overconsolidate—that is, avoid lumping lots
of ideas under one subject. Often, this results in a lack of focus.
4. Clarify ideas. Go down the consolidated list item by item, and
clarify any items that participants have questions about. It’s
helpful to reiterate the meaning of each item before discussing
it. Stick to defining strengths. Restrain the team from talking
about solutions at this point in the process.
5. Identify the top three strengths. Sometimes, the top three
strengths are obvious and no vote is necessary. In that case,
simply test for consensus. Otherwise, give participants a few

20 Executing Strategy
 minutes to pick their top issues individually. Allow each team
member to cast three to five votes (three if the list of issues
is ten items or fewer, five if it is long). Identify the top three
items. If there are ties or the first vote is inconclusive,
discuss the highly rated items from the first vote, and vote
again.
6. Summarize strengths. Once the top three strengths are
selected, summarize them on a single flip-chart page.
7. Repeat steps 2–6 for weaknesses. Similar to strengths, areas
of weakness for a company or unit include leadership abilities,
decision-making abilities, innovation, productivity, quality, serv-
ice, efficiency, technological processes, and so forth.
8. Repeat steps 2–6 for opportunities. Areas of opportunities
include emerging markets, further market penetration, new
technologies, new products or services, geographic expansion,
cost reduction, and so forth.
9. Repeat steps 2–6 for threats. Areas of threat include the
entrance of a new competitor, legislation or regulations that
will increase costs or eliminate a product, a declining product
or market, and so forth.

A unit may conduct two SWOT analyses—one focused on the com-

pany and another on the unit. The goal is to help your company or
unit identify opportunities that it must take advantage of to reach
its mission or vision in five to ten years. SWOT analyses are also im-
portant because they identify possible threats that may prevent a
company or unit from being successful. Through brainstorming
and intensive debate, a number of priority issues begin to emerge.

The Strategic Planning Process 21

 Step 3: Draft priority issues

After analyzing trends and forces and conducting SWOT analyses,

unit leaders will have gathered a wealth of information about the
company and their unit. The next step is to draft priority issues—
broad areas in which unit leaders think the company and unit
should focus efforts for the long term.
In most cases, priority issues emerge directly from the SWOT
analyses. A priority issue is a strength to be bolstered, a critical
weakness to be fixed, an opportunity to be capitalized on, or a
threat to be mitigated. Leaders evaluate priority issues and select a
few—those that have the most positive impact on the long-term
direction of the company or unit.
For example, after conducting a SWOT analysis for the com-
pany, a unit manager identified an opportunity to expand the
unit’s products into developing countries and thus drafted a pri-
ority issue on entering new markets. Another manager, after con-
ducting a SWOT analysis for her unit, learned that the unit was
weak in innovation. This manager therefore made innovation a
priority to be addressed going forward.
After lengthy discussion and debate, unit leaders identify the
top three or four priority issues and present them to senior man-
agement for review. Senior management reviews the priority is-
sues that have been submitted by all the units in addition to the
priority issues that it has generated itself. Reviewing the priority
issues takes time and requires extensive back-and-forth between
senior management and unit leaders.
Using specific criteria that are defined up front, senior man-
agers eventually narrow down the list of priority issues and select

22 Executing Strategy
Steps for determining priority issues
1. Review the results of the SWOT analysis. At the end of the
SWOT analysis, you will have generated four summary lists—
one each for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
On each of these lists, you will have identified the top three
items for each category. Post these summary lists on a wall for
everyone to review.
2. Identify priority issues from the SWOT analysis. Priority
issues typically emerge from the SWOT analysis. They are
strengths to be bolstered, weaknesses to be corrected, opportu-
nities to be capitalized on, and threats to be avoided. Priority
issues generally meet one or more of the following criteria:
they have long-term and major positive financial impact; they
address a fleeting window of opportunity (e.g., a developing
new market or available acquisitions); or they are critical in
correcting any structural weaknesses.
3. Compile priority issues. Ask participants to select their top
three priority issues from the SWOT summary lists, giving them
sufficient time to scan the list and write down their choices. Go
around the room, asking each person to name his or her highest
priority issue (from the top three) without repeating issues
already mentioned. Continue to solicit issues until no more are
forthcoming.
4. Elicit discussion. Ensure that each proposed priority issue is
clear. Discuss the reason for proposing it, the advantage of ad-
dressing it, and the disadvantage of not addressing it. Priority
issues are typically broad areas that a company or unit wants

The Strategic Planning Process 23

 to focus on. Examples include cost, profitability, innovation, and
service. Be wary of priority issues that are too narrow. An item
as narrow as “manufacturing reject rate and cost” may be of
minor strategic importance. The bigger issue might be overall
manufacturing cost structure.
5. Address overlooked priority issues. Sometimes priority issues
are overlooked during this process. Ask participants to suggest
any obvious omissions. For example, a team of retailers arrived
at a list of five priority issues, none of which addressed the sig-
nificant weakness of an uncompetitive cost structure. Once
pointed out, this became their highest priority for the next
several years.
6. Vote on priority issues. Ask participants to cast three votes
on the list of remaining priority-issue candidates. Identify the
three to five priority issues that earn the most votes. As a final
step, record why participants felt that these issues were
important.

the three or four key issues the company will pursue. They dele-
gate those priority issues to the appropriate units or to cross-
functional teams for execution.

Step 4: Develop high-level action plans

Once the priority issues have been approved and delegated to the
appropriate units for implementation, the units or teams then cre-
ate high-level action plans that briefly detail the objectives, tasks,

24 Executing Strategy
and other requirements for carrying out a strategic initiative. Each
priority issue typically generates two to three action plans. For ex-
ample, if customer retention is a priority, it may lead to two action
plans: one for improving customer service and another for devel-
oping a customer loyalty program.
Once a unit has developed its action plans, the unit leaders
send the plans to senior management for review and discussion. If
revisions are necessary, senior management will ask the units to
refine their action plans. At a resource-allocation meeting, the re-
fined action plans are approved, any cross-functional teams are
designated, and senior management allocates the resources re-
quired to carry out the plans. Senior management’s allocation of
resources is critical in aligning units’ actions behind the corporate
strategy.

Step 5: Finalize the plan

The final step in the process is to put the finishing touches on the
plan. Senior management typically writes a corporate direction
statement (if one doesn’t already exist) and clarifies the high-level
objectives that summarize the organization’s overarching initia-
tives. At this point, units might also choose to draft a direction
statement and high-level objectives to summarize their own ef-
forts over the long term. During the planning process, units may
have identified priority issues and tasks at the unit level; these pri-
orities will strategically and structurally move the unit toward ful-
filling its own mission and vision.
Once a strategic plan is in place, managers will review, assess,
and adjust the plan on an ongoing basis as circumstances change.

The Strategic Planning Process 25

The key priority issues addressed in a strategic plan grow out of a
careful examination of external and internal factors. If these fac-
tors remain constant, the plan is likely to need only minor adjust-
ments. But if the factors change dramatically, then the plan will
need to be reevaluated and changed.

26 Executing Strategy
 Your
Strategic-Initiative
Action Plan

27
T he successful execution of strategy hinges on turning pri-
ority issues into action plans for strategic initiatives and
then carrying out those action plans at the unit level. It’s at this
point that strategic planning and execution overlap.
An action plan for a strategic initiative contains the long-term
objectives and the broad steps required to carry out that initiative.
Such a high-level action plan will spawn many, more detailed ac-
tion plans. A unit’s annual planning process will probably involve
integrating into the unit’s annual goals the action plans that sup-
port strategic initiatives.

Components of the action plan

A strategic-initiative action plan typically contains the following

information:

• Priority issue: a description of the broad area that the unit or

team plans to focus on, and why it’s important.

• Objectives and metrics: the intermediate- and long-term

objectives (one, two, and three years ahead) of the strategic
initiative. Objectives allow your unit to measure how it’s
performing. To determine your unit’s objectives, you must
decide on what metrics you will use to measure success. For
example, if your unit puts a priority on entering new mar-
kets, it might have the following objective and corresponding

28 Executing Strategy
 metric: “Increase market penetration by 10 percent annually
for the next five years in Latin American countries.”

• Steps: the tasks that answer the who, what, and when in-
volved in carrying out the initiative. Steps outline the four to
five high-level tasks that need to be completed and that typi-
cally contain short-term objectives, measured in quarters or
months. Eventually, action plans that are more detailed will
be created for each individual step and will be owned by the
people executing them.

• Resources: the required resources—people, money, tech-

nologies, and so forth—for carrying out the initiative.

• Interlocks: the required cross-functional collaborations

needed to execute the initiative.

• Impact estimate: the anticipated cost and revenue potential

of the project.

A sample action plan

Here’s what a simplified, high-level action plan for a manufactur-

ing unit in an electronics company might look like:

• Unit: Manufacturing.

• Priority issue: Long-range capacity.

– Description: Design and build new facilities that will
increase manufacturing’s ability to produce higher unit
volume at lower cost.

Your Strategic-Initiative Action Plan 29

 – Strategic importance: Our current capacity will not allow
us to meet market demand or achieve our strategic objec-
tive of increasing market share.

• Objectives and metrics: Develop long-range manufacturing

facilities that will meet forecast demand from 2010 to 2017;
accommodate testing and manufacture of new products;
and achieve dramatic improvement in quality, cost, and
customer service.
– Year 1: Complete the design phase and begin construc-
tion by year-end.
– Year 2: Complete construction and start production by
year-end.
– Year 3: Achieve initial running rate of 177 million units
per year at a cost of $0.325 per unit.

• Steps: (simplified for purposes of illustration)

Year 1

What Who When

Establish design Manufacturing team; January 2010

specifications engineering leads
Approve specs Senior management February 2010
Flow-chart and Manufacturing team; June 2010
system design; engineering and finance
costing lead
Detailed drawings Manufacturing team; August 2010
for bid purposes; engineering and finance
costing lead
Approval Senior management August 2010

30 Executing Strategy
 Bids Purchasing and construction October 2010
Construction starts Construction team from November 2010
manufacturing and facilities
takes over

• Resources: Need to hire one full-time construction man-

ager, two plant managers from groundbreaking on, and
three assistants to support these managers.

• Interlocks: (simplified for purposes of illustration)

Manufacturing
unit works with To Start when

Construction unit Manage entire construction January 1, 2010

process

Legal Handle all licenses, liability March 1, 2010

assessment, and insurance

Customers Form customer service May 1, 2010

committee to design
order-entry shipment systems

• Impact estimate:
Cost: Expense capital = $125M
Other capital = $125M
Equipment = $250M
Total investment = $500M
Revenue: Yr 1 Yr 3 Yr 5
(new plant)
Price/unit $0.425 $0.400 $0.350
Cost/unit $0.325 $0.270 $0.180
Units 177M 525M 700M
Revenue $75M $210M $500M

Your Strategic-Initiative Action Plan 31

Defining Objectives
and Metrics

33
W hile your company identifies overarching long-term,
strategic objectives, your unit may have determined
some strategic objectives of its own. Further, an action plan for a
strategic initiative typically has longer-term objectives (e.g., for
years 1, 2, and 3), with shorter-term objectives contained within
the action plan steps.
For example, a company might have a mission to become
known as number one in customer service in its industry—with a
strategic objective of raising its customer service index by eight
points over the next two years. Senior management might delegate
this strategic objective to the customer service group while also
declaring that service is the entire company’s top priority. During
the strategic planning process, marketing might then come up
with a unit priority issue of customer loyalty, while sales focuses
on customer retention as a unit priority. The action plans of these
different initiatives might have a common objective of completing
a new customer database by the end of year 1. The action plan for
the sales unit’s customer retention initiative might have another
objective of increasing customer retention by 20 percent by the
end of year 3. Further, as a result of the planning process, the com-
pany might update its corporate strategy to include the area of
customer retention.
In effect, the company, its units, and its strategic initiatives have
a number of cascading and related objectives, with metrics tai-
lored to the units’ unique business processes.

34 Executing Strategy
 How do you effectively define objectives and measure perform-
ance? You identify key result areas, determine measures for suc-
cess, and write objectives. We’ll look at each of these below.

Identifying key result areas

Senior management often determines the overarching key result

areas (KRAs) by which a company’s and a unit’s overall success will
be measured. Units typically have from four to six KRAs by which
they are measured. Units may also determine KRAs of their own.
Different functions are measured in different ways. Consider
the following examples of some KRAs that might be measured for
three units:

K R AS FOR DIFFERENT UNITS

Marketing unit Manufacturing unit H u m a n re s o u rc e s u n i t

• Sales • Unit volume • Training

• Market penetration • Cost • Recruitment
• New products • Efficiency • Compliance
• Pricing • Quality • Compensation/wages
• Distribution • Process • Leadership
• Innovation

Determining measures for success

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

—Peter F. Drucker

Once a unit’s KRAs are determined, leaders then define how success
will be measured. Through those metrics, unit objectives can be

Defining Objectives and Metrics 35

defined. For example, for a manufacturing unit, two KRAs and their
corresponding metrics and objectives might be as follows:

K e y re s u l t a re a Metric Objectives

Cost Cost per unit • By end of year 1, cost per unit will
be $79.50
• By end of year 2, cost per unit will
be $71.00

Units per • By end of year 1, units per

employee employee per year will be 15,000
per year • By end of year 2, units per
employee per year will be 24,000

Safety Work-hours • By end of year 1, work-hours lost

lost per year per year will be 25
• By end of year 2, work-hours lost
per year will be 10

Plant safety • By end of year 1, plant safety

index index will be 94
• By end of year 2, plant safety
index will be 96

Whatever performance measurement system your company or

unit uses, you need to have a clear system for measuring progress
and evaluating performance. The right objectives and metrics will
help.

Writing objectives

When writing objectives, make sure they are SMART—specific,

measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Here are exam-
ples of SMART and not-so-SMART objectives:

36 Executing Strategy
S M A RT o b j e c t i v e N o t - s o - S M A RT o b j e c t i v e

In the next three years, add Add new systems engineers who
twenty new systems engineers are capable of handling the new
who are capable of handling the advanced programming language.
new advanced programming [Objective is not specific,
language—year 1, add two new measurable, or time-bound.]
people; year 2, add nine new
people; and year 3, add nine
new people.

Raise sales 10 percent annually Improve sales over the next year.
over the next three years. [Not specific or measurable.]

Reduce average duration of Reduce average duration of customer

customer service phone calls by service phone calls by 50 percent
30 percent over the next two years. over the next year. [Not likely to be
achievable or realistic.]

Steps for identifying objectives

1. Define key results areas (KRAs). Make sure participants
understand that KRAs are areas of business activity in which
a unit must excel in order to meet customer needs, beat
competition, and exceed stakeholder expectations. Typical
KRAs include cost, customer service, innovation, new products,
and quality. Most units have between four and six KRAs.
2. Solicit KRA ideas and associated measures. Go around the
room, and solicit KRA ideas from participants. Record all sug-
gestions on a flip chart. Allow only comments that seek clarifi-
cation, not those that seek to critique an idea. For each
proposed KRA, list the measurements for success. For example,
if a unit identifies customer satisfaction as a KRA, the group

Defining Objectives and Metrics 37

 might measure this by “number of complaints in a year” and
“number of products returned versus ordered in a year.”
3. Through voting, determine the four to six KRAs and their
corresponding measures that your unit will focus on.
4. Create objectives. For each KRA, using the measures that
have been defined, draft specific long-term objectives. For
example, if customer satisfaction is a KRA and “number of
complaints in a year” is a measurement for success, a unit
might draft this objective: “Reduce the number of complaints
by 30 percent in 2012.”

38 Executing Strategy
 Identifying the
Resources Needed

39
S trategic-initiative action plans outline the resources that
will be required for an initiative to be carried out. Resources
include much more than just money and can take various forms,
including these:

• People

• Technologies

• Office space

• Systems

• Support from other departments

• Vendors and strategic partners

• Time

• Training

Below, we examine ways to estimate your resource needs over the

long term.

Estimating your resource needs

Be ruthless in selecting superlative people for your

future needs.
—Meriwether Lewis

40 Executing Strategy
Managers often make the mistake of not taking enough time to
assess and adequately estimate their resource needs. If they over-
look this step or take shortcuts, they risk failing to execute their
action plans successfully. Here are some questions you might ask
when assessing your resource needs:

• How will the strategic initiative affect my group’s ongoing

day-to-day work?

• Can our existing resources cover the strategic-initiative

action plans in addition to business as usual?

• If not, what additional resources will my unit need?

• What new skills will people need if they are to carry out a
strategic initiative?

• What training will be required? At what cost?

• What new systems or technology will be required to support

the initiative? At what cost?

Thinking long term

As you think about the resources your unit needs, remember to

look beyond just what the group needs today, and consider what it
might need in the coming years. By forecasting skills and compe-
tencies that your group will need in the future and by hiring for
“tomorrow,” you can keep pace with the market and build a com-
petitive advantage.
For example, suppose your company’s long-term strategy calls
for leveraging an up-and-coming technology—and designing new

Identifying the Resources Needed 41

products using that technology. You may anticipate needing team
members skilled in the technology a year down the road. In this
case, you might train some employees in that technology now to
lay the foundation for handling work that will come later.
Planning ahead, thinking strategically, and leveraging current
resources are key management skills in today’s world of con-
strained resources. Your goal is to end up with the right people and
skills you need—by the time you need them.

42 Executing Strategy
Clarifying
Interlocks

43
M ost units don’t work in isolation to execute their strategy.
They need to collaborate with others—inside and
outside the company—to put their strategic plans into action.
The following sections shed light on how to manage these “inter-
locks.”

The need for cross-functional

collaboration

Interlocks, or cross-functional collaborations, lead to two types of

exchanges. Sometimes, your unit will need to receive work from
other units so that you can implement your action plans. Other
times, your unit will need to give work to other units so that they
can carry out their own action plans. Typically, several groups will
need to collaborate to carry out a strategic initiative, and the inter-
locks can be substantial.
Consider this example: Your company may have a priority
issue that focuses on market share, with an objective of growing
its market share by 30 percent over the next five years. This corpo-
rate priority issue and objective will probably have an impact
on many (if not all) units in the company. In developing action
plans, units throughout the organization may find that they
need to collaborate with other units to implement their plans.
For example:

44 Executing Strategy
If your unit is . . . You might need . . . For help in . . .

Sales Human resources Designing a series of courses

on effective cross-selling

Marketing Information Building a customer database

technology that distinguishes market
segments

Product Finance Clarifying new business

development models

When collaboration across groups becomes extensive, companies

often form cross-functional teams comprising representatives
from each unit that has interlocking obligations.
Using the above example, a company may decide that the ob-
jective necessitates creating a cross-functional team. In this case,
the team might be led by someone from the marketing unit and
include others from product development, sales, and information
technology. As needed, the team might pull in members from
finance and human resources.
When cross-functional teams are created, they typically de-
velop a charter that outlines the team’s roles, responsibilities, key
milestones, deliverables, and decision-making processes.

The challenge of coordinating across groups

Many managers find intergroup coordination incredibly challeng-

ing. Why? It requires them to assist, and to obtain assistance from,
people over whom they have no formal authority. Thus, when

Clarifying Interlocks 45
Tips for navigating interlocks
• Determine any required cross-functional collaboration that will
be needed to carry out strategic initiatives, and include those
“interlocking” requirements within the associated action plans.
• Get clear approval for any interlocks from senior management.
This is part of strategic planning.
• When the interlocks for carrying out a strategic initiative are
substantial, consider creating a formal cross-functional team
and charging it with carrying out the initiative.
• If you will need help from another group, notify this group as
early as you can about your needs, and set expectations up
front. Involve the group in determining the specific interlocks
needed, and include those interlocks in your action plans. Later,
as the time approaches when the agreed-upon help will be
needed, remind the group about the upcoming interlocks.
Be sure to give the group plenty of notice.
• If an agreement on interlocks cannot be reached, identify this
as an area of high risk in your action plan. Failure to agree on
interlocks is a source of potential conflict within organiza-
tions—and a common cause of the derailment of an initiative.
• Document all your interlock needs, expectations, and
agreements, and document any agreed-upon changes to
those interlocks.

46 Executing Strategy
creating high-level action plans, be sure to discuss and negotiate
interlock requirements early so you can align all the varied
resources you’ll need to successfully carry out your unit’s plans.
To ensure accountability, document all interlock needs, expec-
tations, and obligations—as well as any changes in the interlocks.
If an interlock agreement cannot be reached, identify it as an area
of high risk in the action plan.
Failure to agree on interlock arrangements can spawn intense
conflict between groups in organizations—especially during
times of tight resources. If any such conflicts arise during imple-
mentation of one of your action plans, raise these issues and
resolve them immediately to keep the plan on course.

Clarifying Interlocks 47
Keeping Your
Action Plan
on Course

49
S trategic alignment across a company is achieved through
the planning process—including delegating priority issues,
approving strategic-initiative action plans, and allocating resources.
To ensure that the execution of an organization’s strategy remains
on course, senior managers and unit leaders must constantly review
and assess progress. Let’s now look at ways to do that.

Reviewing progress

You can track progress, and thus ensure alignment, through these
practices:

• Check in informally. Stay close to the implementation action,

and proactively uncover any hurdles by asking questions
such as “Are people getting the resources they need? What is
blocking progress? Are you getting timely responses to any
issues raised?”

• Report regularly. Require weekly or monthly reports on

the status of action plans. Project Web sites or online team
rooms can be useful for this—giving everyone access to the
information and making progress visible to all.

• Conduct quarterly reviews. Quarterly reviews are an impor-

tant tool for assessing progress and checking alignment.
Typically, units or teams submit one- to two-page reports

50 Executing Strategy
 to senior management for each of the action plans they
are implementing. These reports explain what the unit has
accomplished, what the unit said it would accomplish but
hasn’t, key problems that need resolution, decisions or
resources the unit needs from senior management, and
performance to objectives, when relevant.

Understanding the causes of misalignment

Even the most carefully thought-out action plans can fall victim to
misalignment or become derailed. Whatever the cause, misalign-
ment and derailment are key issues that need to be aired and
addressed during quarterly reviews. Misalignment and derailment
can happen for various reasons:

• Plans are expanded. During the execution of action plans, a

project may increase in scope. For example, a product devel-
opment group might decide to add features to a new offer-
ing or to develop additional add-on products. Spending
time on additional features and products then cuts into the
resources intended to carry out the original plan.

• Plans are trimmed. Conversely, during the execution of

action plans, a project may be cut back. This might be done
to reduce costs or speed up implementation. While such
measures might save money and time, they may also cause an
action plan to fall short of achieving its original objectives.

• Resources are inadequate. Because of day-to-day responsi-

bilities, people may not be given adequate time to work on

Keeping Your Action Plan on Course 51

?
What Would YOU Do?
Tuning In to Strategy Execution

J ENNA MANAGES A MARKETING GROUP at Views, a

wholesaler that distributes movie DVDs to retail stores.
Many consumers, however, have begun buying and downloading
movies from the Web instead of buying DVDs in retail stores. Con-
sequently, retail stores have begun questioning how much value
“expensive middleman” distributors, such as Views, really add.
Senior management has defined an overarching strategic objec-
tive: “Add more value for these core customers—retail stores—by
helping them attract more DVD buyers.”
With input from Jenna’s group and others, senior management
decides its top priorities are pricing and marketing. Specifically, it
is interested in decreasing the cost of DVDs and helping its retail-
store customers with promotions. The groups are asked to develop
action plans for these strategic initiatives.
Jenna’s group develops two high-level action plans: (1) conduct-
ing market research on consumers who buy from the retail stores
and (2) developing strong promotional campaigns for the stores.
As the team members develop their market research action plan,
they recognize that they will need help from the IT group to build a
database to collect their retail-store customer and consumer data.
Jenna knows that IT is overloaded with ongoing requests from

52 Executing Strategy
other groups. She wonders how to secure the resources she’ll need
from IT.
What would YOU do? The mentor will suggest a solution in
What You COULD Do.

strategic initiatives. This may stem from inaccurate resource

estimates, an increase in project scope, or competing priori-
ties. Or it may be that everyone just takes on too much, and
resources are strained.

• Interlocks change. A group that your unit depends on for a

deliverable or collaboration may alter its own plans and there-
fore not be able to fulfill its obligations to your unit. In many
cases, this happens when another group’s manager has failed
to free up the necessary resources. Sometimes, interlocks are
forgotten, or no one has informed another group in advance
that its help will be needed. The cascading effect may make it
difficult for your unit to meet its commitments and objectives.

• Work processes change. The way a task is being handled

(e.g., getting employees to sign up for and complete a
needed training program) might not be generating the de-
sired results, so your unit needs to change a work process.
This change may require additional funding and time that
wasn’t budgeted in the original plan.

• Original estimates are inaccurate. Your unit’s original esti-

mates for the time, effort, and costs needed to carry out an

Keeping Your Action Plan on Course 53

 initiative turn out to be different from the realities. Esti-
mates are often lower than the actual costs.

• Politics interfere with progress. A project may run into

“political blockage”—people who didn’t buy into a priority
issue fail to carry out their obligations, causing delays and
complications.

Anticipating misalignment

In executing any action plan, you will most likely face some degree
of misalignment. After all, it’s impossible to foresee with absolute
certainty what resources every aspect of a project will require.
Often, only by putting a plan into action can you get the most ac-
curate sense of the resources you’ll need. And when valuable new
information is received, you need to be able to learn from it. For
that reason, many managers build flexibility into their plans to
allow for some surprises.
This often takes the form of contingency planning. For in-
stance, for an initiative centering on a new training program, the
manager in charge develops a plan for what he or she will do if the
desired trainers are unavailable.

54 Executing Strategy
Tips for managing alignment
• Accept that changes to your strategic initiatives are inevitable.
• Be clear about who has final approval of changes. Establish a
checks-and-balances system by ensuring that those who
propose changes are not those who approve them.
• Whenever anyone suggests a change to an action plan, ask
yourself, “Does this proposed change support our corporate
strategy and priority issues?” If the suggested change doesn’t
support the corporate strategy, consider setting the idea aside
and addressing it in the future.
• Clearly define all the ramifications—for both the unit and the
company in general—of accepting and implementing a change
to your action plans. Consider how the change will affect
your deadlines, the overall costs, and the team members’
workloads.
• If a proposed change requires further funding, additional peo-
ple, or an extension of time not included in your original action
plans, determine where those extra resources will come from.
You may be able to redirect existing resources within your
group without causing too much disruption to the rest of your
plans. Or, such a change may require lobbying senior manage-
ment for additional resources.

Keeping Your Action Plan on Course 55

?
What You COULD Do
Remember Jenna’s worry about how
she’s going to secure IT resources?

Here’s what the mentor suggests:

An important part of a high-level action plan is defining any

dependencies on, and resources needed from, other groups—
these interdependencies are sometimes called interlocks. Part of
the planning process is establishing up front how groups will need
to work together to achieve their strategic objectives. Senior
management needs to allocate the available resources across
strategic initiatives. Establishing interlocking dependencies and
planning for them is a vital step in planning.
For these reasons, Jenna needs to meet with the head of IT as
soon as possible to negotiate the resources she’ll need from IT to
carry out her group’s initiative. By agreeing on and documenting
this interlock in specific terms, she can be more confident that the
IT manager will follow through on the promised assistance.

56 Executing Strategy
 Establishing
Accountability

57
O nce senior management has approved units’ high-level
action plans and allocated the required resources, the units
are ready to begin executing their strategic initiatives. The first step
is to establish accountability for the different tasks broadly outlined
in the plan. Here are some suggestions for doing so.

Identifying responsibilities

Managers need to determine who will be responsible for the over-

all strategic action plan and, in turn, who will “own,” or be respon-
sible for, each of the different steps required to execute the plan.
For example, suppose your unit has a priority issue that focuses on
innovation and has created an objective of developing five new
products over the next three years. The action plan will contain
the four or five critical steps required to achieve that objective and,
hence, that priority issue. The steps, simplified for purposes of
illustration, might look something like this:

Year 1

What Who When

Conduct market research Marketing team January 2010

to assess customer needs
Synthesize market Outside consulting March 2010
research; create report

58 Executing Strategy
Determine areas for Marketing and product April 2010
prototype development development teams
Design prototype Product development team May 2010
Conduct usability testing Product development and July 2010
marketing teams

Your unit will need to determine which people within market-

ing or product development will be responsible for these specific
tasks. The people to whom tasks in an action plan are delegated
become the owners of those items.
If cross-functional teams have been created to carry out action
plans, then they too will need to determine what their charter is,
who will lead their effort, and how they will make decisions.

Gathering input from others

Establishing accountability can be challenging. How can you make

sure all bases are covered? Get input from the owners of action
plan tasks. Often, the people who are closest to the action can be
particularly aware of the major and minor logistical concerns that
a task may involve.
Consider getting input from people with varying levels of
experience. Team members who have never handled a certain
kind of project or task before may bring a helpful “beginner’s
mind” to the process—generating questions that a more sea-
soned person may not have considered. At the same time, an
experienced employee may be able to offer additional valuable
insights based on lessons learned from previous projects he or she
has handled.

Establishing Accountability 59
Tips for establishing accountability
• Decide who has responsibility for carrying out the tasks in your
action plans.
• In establishing accountability for tasks, consider getting input
from people who have never handled certain kinds of tasks
before—as well as those who have extensive experience.
• Clarify how much autonomy people will have in carrying out
their responsibilities. For example, do you prefer people to con-
sult with you before making a decision? Or do you prefer that
they decide and then inform you? Do you want them to obtain
consensus from other team members before proceeding?
• To clarify autonomy, assess various team members’ capabilities
and preferences. Some people may feel more confident in their
decisions if they can check out their thinking with you before
making a choice. Others may have more experience with, and
prefer, handling decisions by themselves. Still others may have
little experience with “owning” decisions but lots of potential
to excel in this area. Give this last group of people opportunities
to make low-risk decisions themselves, to gain practice.
• Hold regular meetings with your task owners to help them both
evaluate their successes and learn from their failures along
the way. Discussing accomplishments and opportunities for
improvement will help develop the skills of task owners.
• Ensure that the system you use for evaluating task owners
is fair and equitable. Stars should be separated from nonper-
formers and rewarded accordingly.

60 Executing Strategy
 Making judgment calls

Like many other managerial responsibilities, establishing account-

ability can involve complex judgment calls. Though this process
may seem straightforward on the surface, you’ll need to clarify
how much autonomy people and teams will have in carrying out
their responsibilities. For example:

• Do individuals need to consult others before making

a decision?

• If so, for what types of decisions, and who needs to be

consulted?

• Do you want team members to reach consensus before

a decision is made?

Often, the answers to such questions will depend on your assess-

ment of the various team members’ capabilities and preferences.
For instance:

• Some individuals may feel more confident in their decisions

if they can check out their thinking with other team mem-
bers before making a choice.

• Other team members might be interested in (and may have

experience with) handling decisions by themselves.

• Still other individuals may have relatively little experience

with “owning” decisions but lots of potential to excel in this
area. You may want to give them the opportunity to make
some lower-risk decisions themselves, without formal
approval, to gain more practice.

Establishing Accountability 61
 Creating an
Environment
for Execution
Excellence

63
T eams become much more effective at executing strategy if
their manager has created an environment for execution
excellence. To foster such an environment, you’ll need to help your
employees adopt a strategic mind-set, instill the right values in the
group’s culture, develop your people’s leadership skills, identify
and address resistance to the execution of strategic plans, and
train people for the future. We’ll look at each of these below.

Developing a strategic mind-set in your group

To help your group excel at implementing strategic initiatives, culti-

vate a strategic mind-set—the shared belief that strategy is everyone’s
job. This means thinking strategically about the long term, and it
requires a specific culture—a set of shared values and accepted
behaviors. To instill the right values for a strategic mind-set in your
group, you need to share the fundamentals of the strategy:

• Explain why the company’s strategy is necessary. (Is it be-

cause of stiffening competition? Radical new technologies?)

• Explain how the initiatives that are being carried out sup-
port the corporate strategy. (Will they boost revenues?
Enable the organization to enter new markets?)

• Outline what will happen if your group succeeds in imple-

menting its plans. (Will the team win recognition and possi-
ble financial reward?)

64 Executing Strategy
 • Outline what will happen if the group fails to implement its
plans. (Will the company lose its competitive edge? Will
some team members lose their jobs?)

• Finally, make clear what attitudes and behaviors are

expected from each person on the team. (A willingness to
work overtime, if necessary? To ask for help when needed?)

By regularly receiving such information, a group is more likely to

adopt the shared belief that strategy truly is everyone’s job.

Considering your culture

A group’s culture influences what team members consider most

important, how they resolve conflicts, and how they interact with
each other. It also affects their choices about what they want or
don’t want to work on and the quality of their work. For example,
a commonly held value such as customer orientation can guide
employees in many situations to do the right thing that supports
the company strategy—without the need for supervision.
All organizations have a culture—whether they’ve consciously
cultivated it or not. And many organizations, especially larger ones,
embark on culture-change programs in tandem with strategic
change. So whether or not your unit has an established culture to
guide it, you’ll need to instill the right values for a strategic mind-set.

Fostering leadership

The best managers develop leadership abilities in their direct

reports. That means identifying individuals who excel at any of the

Creating an Environment for Execution Excellence 65

various capacities required by a unit—and putting these “stars” in
key positions where they can advance the unit’s strategic goals. In
making such assignments, look for team members who exhibit
qualities such as these:

• Integrity

• Visionary thinking

• Analytical and conceptual thinking

• Functional expertise

• Effective decision-making, interpersonal, and communica-

tion skills

• Drive and initiative

• Commitment to successful execution

By putting these individuals in roles related to executing strat-

egy, you’ll make the best use of their talents.

Identifying and addressing resistance

Like any form of change, strategic change is difficult, even painful,

for many people. Thus, most managers encounter resistance from
some direct reports when implementing a new initiative. Resis-
tance might take many forms:

• Outright defiance

• Apparent agreement to do something, but failure to follow

through

66 Executing Strategy
 • An emotional attachment to the way things were previously
done

• Diminishing commitment to the job

Whether these behaviors stem from ill intent or simply fear of

the unknown, resistance to strategic initiatives can seriously impede
your unit’s efforts to execute strategy. Resisters not only threaten to
slow efforts, but can also cost an organization a lot of money—and
possibly even market share—by hampering strategic change.
Your unit can’t do its part to support corporate strategy unless
everyone shares an enthusiasm for the strategic initiatives. How
should you deal with resisters? If an individual shows signs of
balking at strategic change yet has valuable talents that you want
to retain, consider these options:

• Information: Give the person plenty of information about

the market forces that are forcing the company to change,
how the company intends to deal with those forces, and
what the corporate strategy and initiatives mean for that
individual.

• Involvement: Invite the person to participate as much as

possible in planning and executing initiatives, so he or she
has a personal investment in the strategy and initiatives.

• Coaching: Identify reasons behind the resistance (fear of

change? lack of information?) to see whether they can be
overcome or corrected.

• Performance improvement plan: If necessary, with the help of

your human resources group, develop a formal performance

Creating an Environment for Execution Excellence 67

 improvement plan whereby the individual is evaluated
periodically against a set of defined objectives.

With resisters who can’t be salvaged, you have little choice but
to separate them from your unit as quickly as possible. Consider
moving those people elsewhere—to areas in the organization
where they may feel less resistant to change and therefore still be
able to make a genuine contribution. If all else fails, consider dis-
missing them.

Training people for the future

Ongoing training is essential for enabling a unit to excel at execut-

ing strategy. Identify any new skills individuals will need in order
to carry out new initiatives. These skills include using new analytic
and decision-making tools, giving presentations, managing proj-
ects, and communicating with customers. Decide how and when
the training will be provided.
Also consider training programs that deal specifically with
strategic planning, project management, and change. Courses on
topics such as where strategy comes from, how to interpret market
forces, and why change is important can help individuals grasp the
bigger picture and better understand their role in it.
A major strategic initiative provides an opportunity for every-
body to develop management skills and to be a visible success
within the company.

68 Executing Strategy
 Evaluating
and Rewarding
Performance

69
W ith a strategic initiative well under way in your unit,
one final process remains: evaluating the unit’s per-
formance and rewarding successful results. Through this process,
you reinforce desired behaviors and attitudes—increasing the
likelihood that your unit will perform even better while executing
strategic efforts in the future.
Evaluating performance entails measuring how your unit has
performed on its overall objectives, as well as how individuals have
performed on their objectives. And it involves considering both
quantitative and qualitative performance data as well as the types
of rewards you’ll use to foster additional success.

Using quantitative criteria

Most units have from four to six key result areas by which their
success is typically measured. Different functions have different
types of criteria. For example, a marketing group’s performance
might be measured by sales, market penetration, and distribution,
while a manufacturing unit’s performance might be measured by
unit volume, cost, and quality.
Objectives that focus on revenue, cost of goods, market share,
and so forth are quantifiable and measurable. For example, your
unit might have an objective of increasing revenue by 10 percent
annually over the next three years by putting several strategic ini-
tiatives into action. At the end of year 1, you’ll review the revenue

70 Executing Strategy
numbers and confirm whether revenue did in fact increase by
10 percent that year. If it did, that’s a good sign that your group is
executing strategy effectively.

Using qualitative criteria

Other criteria by which units and individuals are judged are less
quantifiable and more qualitative. But these criteria are just as im-
portant. Specifically, as your group carries out strategic initiatives,
watch for signs of the following forms of good performance:

• Going the extra mile: The unit exceeds expectations in its

accomplishment of strategic initiatives.

• Creativity: Individuals are devising fresh and creative ways

to accomplish the job—ways that could be used elsewhere in
the organization.

• Teamwork: People are working together as a team—

collaborating with one another, resolving conflicts, and
sharing what they’ve learned.

• Presentation skills: Team members are able to get ideas

across quickly to decision makers and move smoothly from
discussions to action.

• Planning: People plan ahead and stay informed about what’s

coming—whether the news is good or bad.

• Knowledge and learning: Team members understand the

company’s business, their own role in supporting the
corporate strategy, and the details of the action plans

Evaluating and Rewarding Performance 71

 they’re responsible for. They enthusiastically embrace
learning new skills.

• Attitudes and values: Your people are demonstrating the

attitudes and values required to achieve the unit’s and
company’s strategic objectives.

Rewarding desired results

The question of how to compensate and otherwise reward people

for good performance is a big subject, and different companies
handle it in different ways. For instance, in some organizations,
managers have extensive control over salaries, bonuses, stock op-
tions, and other forms of financial reward that may be offered to
their direct reports. In other companies, top management deter-
mines the compensation system for the entire company, and man-
agers have less say over how they reward their direct reports
financially.
Often, reward and financial compensation systems are based on
individual or group performance as measured by various specific
criteria. Whatever reward system your company uses to reinforce
excellence in strategy execution, it’s important that employees un-
derstand how the system works. Specifically, answer the following
questions for them:

• What exactly is expected of them, and what exactly will they

receive if they perform well?

• Is the reward system permanent, or will it be modified or dis-

continued once strategic initiatives are fully implemented?

72 Executing Strategy
 • Will everyone be eligible for rewards? For example, if the
reward system features bonuses for sales of a new product,
how will the product development people be rewarded for
their contribution to the successful product?

Of course, most people value some form of financial reward

for their work. Managers should find equitable ways to dole out
pay raises, bonuses, stock options, and so forth to deserving
individuals. But keep in mind that many people look for other
kinds of reward from their work as well—which is helpful if finan-
cial rewards are limited. For example, people may value these
rewards:

• Recognition: earning praise from peers and superiors; hav-

ing the opportunity to show off an accomplishment or talk
about a creative approach

• Intellectual challenge: working on mentally demanding

projects

• Power and influence: making important decisions

• Affiliation: working with colleagues who share similar skills

and interests

• Managing people: directing other people’s efforts

• Positioning: gaining access to experience and contacts who

will open doors to subsequent career moves

• Lifestyle: having the time to pursue other important inter-

ests in life (through such perks as flexible work schedules,
work-share arrangements, and ample personal days)

Evaluating and Rewarding Performance 73

 • Autonomy: working with little supervision

• Variety: working on a mix of different projects

By combining financial and nonfinancial rewards—and tailor-

ing them to individuals’ unique preferences—you can foster an
environment where your people strive for execution excellence
again and again.

74 Executing Strategy
Tips and
Tools
 Tools for
Executing Strategy

77
 EXECUTING STRATEGY

Worksheet for Conducting a SWOT Analysis

Use a SWOT analysis to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats relative to
your company, unit or group, or a program you want to evaluate. The SWOT analysis lets you
focus on specific areas and discover actions that can help build on strengths, minimize
or eliminate weaknesses, maximize opportunities, and deal with or overcome threats.

Date of analysis:

What is being analyzed:

Internal Analysis

List factors inherent to what is being analyzed, such as the competencies of your group.

Strengths Ideas for building on these strengths

Weaknesses Ideas for minimizing or repairing these weaknesses

External Analysis

List factors external to what is being analyzed, such as customer needs or marketplace trends.

Opportunities Ideas for investigating or taking

advantage of these opportunities

Threats Ideas for minimizing or overcoming these threats

78 Tools for Executing Strategy

 EXECUTING STRATEGY

Worksheet for Developing an Action Plan

Use this tool to develop an action plan for a strategic initiative that your group is implementing.

Program name:

Program manager:

Priority issue(s):

Objectives and metrics:

Resources:

Action Steps Required

Task to be done Person responsible Due date

Tools for Executing Strategy 79

 Interlocks Required

Task to be done Group/division/person responsible Due date

Impact Estimate
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Revenue
Sales:

Gain
Profit:
Cost savings:
Total:

Cost
Expense:
Capital addition:
Working-capital changes:

Net results
Cash flow:
Present value:
Profitability:

People
Number:
Time required:
Special skills:

80 Tools for Executing Strategy

 EXECUTING STRATEGY

Worksheet for Determining Objectives

from Key Result Areas
Use this tool to help you identify measures and objectives for each of your key result areas (KRAs).
Remember that all of your objectives should be SMART—specific, measurable,
achievable, realistic, and time-bound.

Key result area Measures Objectives

Example: cost • Cost per unit • Decrease cost per unit by
• Units sold per employee 10 percent in 2004
per year • Increase units sold by
5 percent per employee
by 2006

Tools for Executing Strategy 81

 EXECUTING STRATEGY

Alignment Checklist
Use this tool to check for misalignment between your action plan for a strategic initiative
and the corporate strategy.

Part 1: Sources of Misalignment

For each statement below, check “Yes” if you think the statement accurately describes the
implementation of your action plan. Check “No” if you think the statement doesn’t accu-
rately describe the implementation of your action plan.

Statement

As you began to implement your action plan, individuals added new objectives and new
steps to the plan.

As you continued to implement the plan, people removed some objectives and steps to
reduce costs or speed up implementation.

During implementation, you realized that you had left out certain tasks and needed to add
them.

During implementation, the way certain tasks were handled didn’t generate the desired
results, and you realized you needed to change work processes.

During implementation, you discovered that your original estimates for time, effort, and
costs required to carry out the plan’s objectives were inaccurate.

If you checked “Yes” for any of the above statements, your plan may be off course or at risk
of misalignment. However, that doesn’t mean you should refuse to make any changes to
your original plan. Instead, evaluate each proposed change in light of its relation to the
corporate strategy and its impact on cost, schedule, team members’ workloads, and so forth.
Use part 2, below, to conduct this evaluation.

82 Tools for Executing Strategy

Part 2: Evaluating Proposed Changes

In the table below, list all the proposed changes to your action plan. For each change, fill in the
potential implications.

Proposed Would the Change’s impact Change’s impact Change’s impact

change change support on cost on schedule on resources
corporate
strategy?

Tools for Executing Strategy 83

 EXECUTING STRATEGY

Creating an Environment-for-Excellence
Checklist
Use this tool to assess how well you create an environment that encourages excellence.

Rating

All of Some of None of

Statement the time the time the time

I involve the members of my group in the strategic

planning process.

I explain to my group why the company’s strategy is

necessary and how our work supports that strategy.

My group understands what will happen if it fails to

implement our strategic initiatives.

Members of my group understand what rewards

(financial or otherwise) they will receive if they succeed
in implementing our strategic initiatives.

I take the time to identify any new skills that people will
need to carry out our action plans, and I provide the
necessary training.

I clearly state the attitudes and behaviors I expect the

members of my group to exhibit.

The members of my group know exactly what they are

allowed to do without consulting me—and what they
must get my permission to do before acting.

I identify individuals who excel in the capacities re-

quired by my group—and place them in key positions.

I identify skeptics in my group, the reasons why they

resist, and how any resistance can be overcome.

I remove resistors whose behavior cannot be changed

from my group.

84 Tools for Executing Strategy

 Ideas for Improvement

In light of your answers, what changes could you make to effectively cultivate an environ-
ment for excellence?

Tools for Executing Strategy 85

 Test Yourself

This section offers ten multiple-choice questions to help you iden-

tify your baseline knowledge of the essentials of executing strat-
egy. Answers to the questions are given at the end of the test.

1. What is a corporate strategy?

a. A plan for clarifying who a company’s customers are and
what they value.
b. A plan describing where a company wants to be and how it
intends to get there.
c. A plan spelling out your company’s operational objectives
for the next twelve months.

2. Which of the following best describes the components of a

strategic plan?
a. Direction statement, priority issues, strategic objectives, and
action plans.
b. Mission statement, the company’s annual report, and analy-
sis of industry trends.
c. Vision statement, market position, and published state-
ments to shareholders.

Test Yourself 87
3. Which of the following is not a key component of an action plan?
a. Required interlocks, or collaborations, between different
departments.
b. Metrics for measuring progress toward each objective.
c. The rewards that will come with successful implementation
of the plan.

4. If senior management has not delegated priority issues to your

unit, how might you best identify your unit’s priority issues?
a. Brainstorm possible issues, and then evaluate whether they
are realistic in light of your unit’s available resources.
b. Analyze external and internal factors, and then assess your
unit’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
c. Find out which interdepartmental collaborations might be
necessary for your unit to support the corporate strategy.

5. Which of the following is the best example of a well-phrased

strategic objective?
a. “Have team members complete customer-service training.”
b. “Raise sales 10 percent annually over the next three years.”
c. “Provide better customer service than what all our rivals
provide.”

6. Your unit’s action plans have just received approval from senior
management. What is the best way to ensure that your action
plans remain aligned with your company’s strategy in the upcom-
ing months?

88 Test Yourself
 a. Provide senior management monthly five- to six-page
reports detailing what your unit has accomplished during
the month, as well as performance reviews for each team
member.
b. Provide senior management quarterly one- to two-page
reviews that include what your unit has and has not
accomplished during the past three months, as well as any
key issues or other problems that need resolution.
c. Ask three to five members of your team to make a weekly
presentation to senior management; the presentation should
address what your unit has or has not accomplished, as well
as any decisions that need to be made or resources that need
to be allocated.

7. Once senior management has approved your unit’s action plans

and allocated the required resources, what do you do next?
a. Decide who will “own” the different tasks broadly defined in
the plan.
b. Conduct a SWOT analysis to ensure that your action plan
addresses all the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportu-
nities, and threats.
c. Determine additional resources—including people, train-
ing, space, systems, and technology—necessary to carry out
the action plan.

8. In implementing your unit’s action plans, you’ve observed

some resistance from a valued team member. How should you
address the situation?

Test Yourself 89
 a. Separate the person from your group immediately to
prevent damage to team morale—perhaps by moving the
person to a position where he or she can contribute more
willingly.
b. Provide the person with information about why the com-
pany’s strategy is necessary, encourage participation in artic-
ulating and implementing the strategy, and use coaching to
address the resistance.
c. Before actively addressing the situation, give the person
adequate time to adapt and overcome any resistance.

9. You want to assess your group’s implementation of a strategic

initiative. In addition to evaluating the group’s performance on
objectively defined metrics (e.g., the number of potential new cus-
tomers contacted this quarter), you need to consider other criteria
as well. Which one of the following criteria would you not be likely
to use?
a. Creativity—the group’s ability to devise fresh ways of
accomplishing a job.
b. Timeliness—whether the group has successfully accom-
plished its tasks within the time frame stated in the original
plan.
c. Knowledge and learning—how deeply the team understands
the company’s business and the team’s role in supporting the
corporate strategy.

10. How can you best reward your team members for successfully
implementing your company’s strategy?

90 Test Yourself
 a. Emphasize the possibility of public recognition for all team
members’ accomplishments, including memos of praise to
upper management.
b. Combine your available financial and nonfinancial rewards,
and customize them according to each team member’s re-
ward values.
c. Make monetary compensation (whether it’s raises, bonuses,
or stock options) the centerpiece of your reward system.

Answers to test questions

1, b. A company’s strategy consists of a plan for where it wants to

go and how it intends to get there. Managers formulate strategy by
asking fundamental questions such as these: Who are our cus-
tomers, and what do they value? What products or services should
we offer them? How will our customers and competitors change
over time? How can we better position our company in our indus-
try, given business trends? How can we distinguish ourselves from
our rivals to remain competitive despite changes in our playing
field?

2, a. A direction statement lays out the company’s mission (pur-

pose), vision (deeply desired future), business definition (offerings,
customers, markets), competitive advantages, core competencies,
and values. Examples of priority issues might include customer
loyalty or service. Each priority issue may have several correspon-
ding high-level strategic objectives—for example, “To increase
customer loyalty, we need to boost repeat orders 20 percent and
Test Yourself 91
develop a loyalty program by year-end.” A single priority issue
many spawn two or three action plans—critical steps that must be
taken to accomplish the priority issue at the unit level.

3, c. Interlocks and metrics are components of an action plan. Re-

wards for successful implementation of the plan are not, although
managers should design a system for evaluating and rewarding
successful implementation. Decisions about how to evaluate and
reward performance are part of executing strategy, not compo-
nents of an action plan.

4, b. By analyzing external and internal factors and then assessing

your unit’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (a
SWOT analysis), you can identify priority issues that support the
corporate strategy, play to your team’s strengths, and enable
your group to leverage important new opportunities and avert
threats. Strengths and weaknesses stem from a group’s internal
characteristics. For instance, a team may excel at solving problems
quickly, but may be less skilled at forging positive, long-term rela-
tionships with customers. Opportunities and threats generally
come from outside a company. For example, a key supplier is offer-
ing steeper discounts (an opportunity) or raising prices drastically
(a threat).

5, b. This objective is phrased in a way that meets the SMART cri-

teria: it’s specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-
bound. Objectives that are phrased in ways that don’t meet these
criteria are often vague or unrealistic, which makes them difficult
for employees to understand and carry out. When you phrase

92 Test Yourself
objectives in SMART ways, you make it easier to translate the ob-
jectives into metrics for evaluating progress. For example, the goal
“Raise sales 10 percent annually over the next three years” could be
translated into the metric “percent increase in sales per year over
the specified period.”

6, b. Quarterly reviews are an efficient tool for assessing progress

and checking alignment. Units should submit short reports for
each of the action plans they are working on. These reports should
address what the unit has accomplished, what the unit hasn’t ac-
complished but said it would, which key issues need resolution,
which decisions or resources the unit needs from senior manage-
ment, and what the performance objectives are, if relevant.

7, a. Once corporate has allocated the necessary resources, your

unit is ready to execute its action plans. The first step is to establish
accountability for each of the tasks defined in each plan. Who will
be responsible for what? Deciding exactly who should own each
task can be challenging, but this step is critical to an effectively
managed plan rollout. Since the people who are responsible for
each of the tasks will be the closest to the action, they are the most
likely to be aware of any logistical concerns or other issues that
may develop as the plan is executed.

8, b. It’s important to promptly address any resistance to your

strategic plan. Otherwise, the plan may fail—often resulting in lost
market share, decreased morale, and depleted company resources.
Begin by providing information about the strategy, encouraging
participation in its implementation, and coaching team members

Test Yourself 93
whom you value (and who you believe can overcome their own re-
sistance). If these measures aren’t successful, then it’s best to sepa-
rate such individuals from the group—perhaps by moving them
to a different part of the organization where they can make a con-
tribution more willingly.

9, b. If you’ve already evaluated objectively defined metrics,

you’ve probably included timeliness, since it’s an objective meas-
ure. In addition to objective accomplishments, managers also
need to evaluate more subjective criteria for performance—such as
creativity, knowledge and learning, teamwork, presentation skills,
and ability to plan. These skills and attitudes play a crucial role in
your team’s ability to carry out your unit’s action plans effectively.
Without these qualities, no team can truly excel.

10, b. Though each company handles compensation differently,

often the most effective reward systems offer both financial and
nonfinancial rewards and are customized to meet individuals’
preferences. In addition to raises, bonuses, or stock options, many
people value forms of nonfinancial reward—such as flexible
schedules, public recognition, opportunities to work on challeng-
ing assignments, and a chance to collaborate with colleagues they
like. By getting to know what each team member values most in
terms of nonfinancial rewards, you can customize a reward system
that will inspire your group to even greater performance.

94 Test Yourself
 To Learn More

Articles

Gadiesh, Orit, and James L. Gilbert. “Transforming Corner-Office

Strategy into Frontline Action.” Harvard Business Review, OnPoint
Enhanced Edition, May 2001.
In addition to a strategic plan and companywide meetings,
organizations use other channels to communicate their
strategy to managers and employees. Orit Gadiesh and
James Gilbert call one of these channels a strategic principle—
a memorable, action-oriented phrase that distills the com-
pany’s strategy. Here are some examples: Southwest Airlines’
“Meet customers’ short-haul travel needs at fares competitive
with the cost of automobile travel”; AOL’s “Consumer
connectivity first—anytime, anywhere”; eBay’s “Focus on
trading communities.”
A good strategic principle encourages managers and
employees to focus on the corporate strategy and take risks
in identifying ways to support the strategy. By commu-
nicating your company’s strategic principle frequently and
consistently, you’ll soon have people throughout your
organization—as well as customers and competitors—
“chanting the rant.”

95
Kaplan, Robert S., and David P. Norton. “How to Implement a
New Strategy Without Disrupting Your Organization.” Harvard
Business Review, March 2006.
Is structural change the right tool for the job? The answer is
usually no, Robert Kaplan and David Norton contend. It’s far
less disruptive to choose an organizational design that works
without major conflicts and then design a customized strategic
system to align that structure to the strategy. A management
system based on the balanced-scorecard (BSC) framework is
the best way to align strategy and structure, the authors sug-
gest. Managers can use the tools of the framework to drive
their unit’s performance: strategy maps to define and commu-
nicate the company’s value proposition, and the scorecard
to implement and monitor the strategy. In this article, the
originators of the BSC describe how two hugely different
organizations—DuPont and the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police—used corporate scorecards and strategy maps organ-
ized around strategic themes to realize the enormous value
that their portfolios of assets, people, and skills represented.
As a result, the two organizations avoided a painful series
of changes that would simply replace one rigid structure
with another.

Norton, David P., and Randall H. Russell. “Translate the Strategy

into Operational Terms.” Balanced Scorecard Report, May 2005.
By now, the balanced scorecard’s universal appeal as a manage-
ment approach is well established. In its 2002 benchmarking
data report, the Hackett Group found that 96 percent of the

96 To Learn More
 nearly two thousand global companies it surveyed had
implemented, or planned to implement, the BSC. The real
issue, though, isn’t how many companies are using this
approach, but, rather, whether they are using it properly. In
the BSC’s fifteen-year history, the core message has remained
the same: to achieve breakthrough results, you must be able
to manage strategy. And to manage strategy, you must first
be able to describe it—translate it into a language that
everyone understands.

Porter, Michael E. “What Is Strategy?” Harvard Business Review,

OnPoint Enhanced Edition, February 2000.
Today’s dynamic markets and technologies have called into
question the sustainability of competitive advantage. Under
pressure to improve productivity, quality, and speed,
managers have embraced tools such as total quality man-
agement, benchmarking, and reengineering. Dramatic
operational improvements have resulted, but rarely have
these gains translated into sustainable profitability. And
gradually, the tools have taken the place of strategy. As
managers push to improve on all fronts, they move further
away from viable competitive positions. Michael Porter
argues that operational effectiveness, although necessary
for superior performance, is not sufficient, because its
techniques are easy to imitate. In contrast, the essence
of strategy is choosing a unique and valuable position
rooted in systems of activities that are much more difficult
to match.

To Learn More 97
Van Zwieten, John.“How Not to Waste Your Investment in Strategy.”
Training & Development, June 1999.
In this article, John Van Zwieten explores six common dilem-
mas faced by executive and lower-level managers attempting to
change strategic direction. He then provides a diagnosis for
each dilemma and offers lessons. For example, one dilemma is
characterized by divisions that are working at cross-purposes.
Such companies, the author explains, are likely to encourage
competition between divisions. The solution? An overarching
vision of how divisions can cooperate, including a plan for
presenting “one face” to customers.

Books

Fogg, C. Davis. Implementing Your Strategic Plan: How to Turn

“Intent” into Effective Action for Sustainable Change. New York:
AMACOM, 1999.
This book lays out the steps required to understand your
company’s strategy and strategic plan, develop a unit plan,
and implement your unit plan. C. Davis Fogg organizes the
book around eighteen keys to successful implementation of a
plan. These include establishing accountability; turning strate-
gic priorities into assigned, measurable action plans; fostering
creative leadership and mental toughness; removing resist-
ance; allocating resources effectively; empowering employees;
and communicating strategy to everyone, all the time.
The book includes a wealth of examples, practical advice,
and techniques for turning strategic plans into reality. Though

98 To Learn More
 aimed at senior managers, it offers lessons for other managers
and team leaders at every level of an organization.

Fogg, C. Davis. Team-Based Strategic Planning: A Complete Guide

to Structuring, Facilitating, and Implementing the Process. New
York: AMACOM,1994.
Fogg focuses on strategic planning in a team environment,
exploring six key aspects: (1) structure and customization—
designing the planning process to meet the needs of your
organization, (2) facilitation—making things happen, from
running meetings to documenting decisions, (3) teamwork—
building teams and resolving conflicts, (4) leadership—forging
the vision and making the plan operational, (5) organizational
involvement—gaining commitment at all levels, and (6) infor-
mation gathering and analysis—benchmarking, competitive
analyses, and other valuable techniques.
Examples from actual companies illustrate each step of the
process, and case studies reveal what worked and what didn’t.
The book also includes hands-on tools for mastering the
strategic planning process.

Markides, Constantinos C. All the Right Moves: A Guide to Crafting

Breakthrough Strategy. Boston: Harvard Business School Press,
2000.
Constantinos Markides explores the key questions companies
must answer to define a strategy: Whom should we target as
customers? What products or services should we offer them?
How should we do this efficiently? How can we differentiate

To Learn More 99
 ourselves from rivals to stake out a unique competitive
position?
But even the best strategies have a limited life. Companies
must continually create new strategic positions—often by
breaking the rules of the game. All the Right Moves reveals how
creative thinking—including examining an issue from a vari-
ety of angles and experimenting with new ideas—leads to
strategic innovation.
Strategy formulation also requires companies to make
tough choices. This book offers concrete advice for thinking
through those choices—systematically and successfully.

eLearning Programs

Harvard Business School Publishing. Case in Point. Boston:

Harvard Business School Publishing, 2004.
Case in Point is a flexible set of online cases designed to help
prepare middle- and senior-level managers for a variety of
leadership challenges. These short, reality-based scenarios
provide sophisticated content to create a focused view into
the realities of the life of a leader. Your managers will experi-
ence realistic challenges under the following case headings:
Aligning Strategy, Removing Implementation Barriers,
Overseeing Change, Anticipating Risk, Ethical Decisions,
Building a Business Case, Cultivating Customer Loyalty,
Emotional Intelligence, Developing a Global Perspective,
Fostering Innovation, Defining Problems, Selecting Solu-
tions, Managing Difficult Interactions, The Coach’s Role,
Delegating for Growth, Managing Creativity, Influencing

100 To Learn More

 Others, Managing Performance, Providing Feedback, and
Retaining Talent.

Harvard Business School Publishing. Managing Change. Boston:

Harvard Business School Publishing, 2000.
According to leadership experts, 70 percent of all corporate
initiatives for change fail. This interactive program combines
the theory and research of five change strategists to quickly
and easily help managers balance pace and roll out change ini-
tiatives successfully. Managers will learn the numerous phases
of change, critical mistakes to avoid, how to initiate carefully
paced periods of smaller change, and how to lead successfully
through change. Lessons include how to balance content,
processes, and employees’ emotions during a change initiative;
how to maintain continuous change without tearing the
organization apart (dynamic stability); how to navigate the
phases of a change; and how to utilize empowered employees
and trust to support a change effort.

Harvard Business School Publishing. What Is a Leader? Boston:

Harvard Business School Publishing, 2001.
This interactive program helps managers apply concepts and
grow from a competent manager to an exceptional leader. Use
this program to assess your ability to lead your organization
through fundamental change, to evaluate your leadership skills
by examining how you allocate your time, and to analyze your
“emotional intelligence” to determine your strengths and
weaknesses as a leader. In addition, work through interactive,
realistic scenarios to determine what approach to take when

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 diagnosing problems and to learn how to manage and even use
the stress associated with change, how to empower others, and
how to practice empathy when managing the human side of
interactions. Based on the research and writings of John Kot-
ter, author of Leading Change, and other top leadership experts
of today, this program is essential study for anyone charged
with setting the direction of—and providing the motivation
for—a modern organization.

102 To Learn More

 Sources for Executing
Strategy

The following sources aided in development of this book:

Butler, Timothy, and James Waldroop. Discovering Your Career
in Business. New York: Perseus Books, 1997.
C. Davis Fogg Management Consulting, Inc. Departmental
Planning Process Guide. Wakefield, RI: C. Davis Fogg
Management Consulting, 1997.
Fogg, C. Davis. Implementing Your Strategic Plan: How to Turn
“Intent” into Effective Action for Sustainable Change. New
York: AMACOM, 1999.
———. Team-Based Strategic Planning: A Complete Guide to
Structuring, Facilitating and Implementing the Process.
New York: AMACOM, 1994.
Gadiesh, Orit, and James L. Gilbert. “Transforming Corner-
Office Strategy into Frontline Action.” Harvard Business
Review, OnPoint Enhanced Edition, May 2001.
Johnson, Lauren Keller. “Helping New Managers Make the
Leap to Leadership: An Interview with Linda A. Hill.”
Harvard Management Update, September 2003.

103
 Levine, Harvey A. “Managing the Baseline and Controlling
Creep.” Parts 2 and 3. [Link]. Accessed July 22,
2003.
Porter, Michael E. “What Is Strategy?” Harvard Business
Review, OnPoint Enhanced Edition, November–December
1996.

104 Sources for Executing Strategy

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