While I preach and preach about the importance of having an excellent, coherent strategy I cannot deny the overwhelming importance of great execution. In recent weeks I have worked with two top leaders (both women incidentally)who are fantastic at execution - which has driven this home. The importance of being able to GSD (Get Stuff Done) is always vital, as two friends of … [Read more...] about Execution Beats Strategy?
implementation
Implementing Integrated Strategy
The three most important questions that your strategy should answer are: *What products/services/programs of value are we going to provide and to whom? *Who do we need to staff the provision of these products/services/programs? *How will we finance all of this activity? An organization should have at least one strategic goal which relates to each of these … [Read more...] about Implementing Integrated Strategy
Conduct a Premortem
We’ve all seen the TV docs do a postmortem to figure out why and how a victim died so the NCIS detectives can catch the bad guy. A lot of organizations will conduct a postmortem after a big event or project has concluded to do an evaluation (though I prefer an After Action Review, since I hope no one died while implementing the project). Research has demonstrated … [Read more...] about Conduct a Premortem
Process & Impact Milestones
Once you set a goal and you make a plan, then you should set two types of milestones – Process Milestones and Impact Milestones. I notice that most people do not set milestones and when they do they only set Process Milestones. Process Milestones are periodic check-in dates in which you look at your Action Plan to see if all of the action steps are being followed. You can … [Read more...] about Process & Impact Milestones
Tug-of-War: Strategy vs Culture (Part 2)
Picking up from Part 1, to align culture with strategy to achieve mission impact, at Bethany College we executed an action plan to build the preferred, new culture keeping the best of the “clan culture” (charming small college) and adding elements of innovative and competitive cultures. As a result, the distance from where we began to where we were going created a … [Read more...] about Tug-of-War: Strategy vs Culture (Part 2)