“We didn’t do too badly this year, despite the slowdown. We sure took advantage of the COVID-19 crisis. Our problem has always been not having the right strategy. Thankfully, COVID-19 made us rethink that. We finally have our 2021 business plan approved by the board. The strategy is right – 2021 will be a breeze.”
“Congratulations! However, I recall that every December, for the past 5 years, you always believe you have the right strategy for the new year …”
“This year is different; the pandemic put so much pressure on our business that our OPEX dropped 50%. We plan to keep it that way. Our board finally approved the most important idea for our business. Our new strategy is what the market needs. 2021 will be great, I tell you.”
“It is likely that your competitors also took advantage of the crisis. They may also have a great 2021 strategy. Businesses don’t lack great strategies. The problem is what I call execution pandemic and …”
Read also: Covid19 and Business Growth:Crafting a Winning Strategy
“How do you mean?”
“Have you heard of George Arison?”
“No; who is he?”
“George saw Uber coming before Uber did; he launched the first cab-hailing app, Taxi Magic. They had up to 300,000 downloads a day. Check Google.”
“Amazing! I never heard of them.”
“That’s because they failed executing. George said, “Uber out-executed us”. Taxi Magic had the vision. Uber had the execution. You see, poor execution is the business problem you should be solving in 2021. Somewhere in middle management, translating strategy to business outcomes is the problem. You have planned the work. You need to successfully work the plan”
“Whaow.”
“This is the problem most businesses face. Immature execution muscle. Execution itself is not well researched. For every 20 books on strategy, you find 1 on execution.”
“You are right actually. We focus on strategy. We have fantastic plans. With enough pressure, however, we drift away.
But the truth is that if we don’t deal with those pressures, we may no longer be in business.”
“Putting out the fire is the right decision, however, don’t build monuments around the ashes. You need to keep your eye on the goal by tracking monthly or quarterly milestones. That will take you closer to your ideal more reliably than running without checkpoints.”
“Getting to know how we are doing every 3 months may be too late for recovery actions.”
“Set up weekly engagements towards the milestones/goal. Get someone who is not directly involved in the delivery to facilitate and challenge team.”
“Weekly?”
“Yes. That sets the pace and helps break functional silos. It forces teams to view deliverables in a more integrated manner and improves the delivery culture of the business. Execution should not be left to the folks at the coalface but should be driven from the top.”
“It’s such a good thing we had this conversation; you have no idea of what just happened to my view of the world.”
“Good to know! I need to run now. Let me leave you with a quote from my sports coach, ‘With little discipline you do little things. With a lot of discipline, you do a lot of things. With total discipline there’s very little you cannot do.’”
