To Avoid Failure, Strategy and Strategy Execution Should Move Beyond Table Top Exercises

What is Strategy and Strategic Execution?

Strategy is the art of normalizing ambiguity in an ever shifting business landscape, both in near and long term.​ Strategy Execution entails the plans and actions prescribed to manage the ambiguity.​ Regardless where the business is in its state of life-cycle, strategy and strategy execution are the key tenants to ensure continued success​ Due to the consistent shifting sands of business landscape, strategy has to be reviewed and adjusted constantly.​ As the strategy is refined, so are the actions to execute on it.​

For practical use, the definition above implies two parallel responsibilities that must be handled at the same time: first, choosing how the organization will respond to ambiguity in the market; second, defining the plans and actions that will manage that ambiguity once the choice is made. It also implies that strategy is not a one-time planning event, because the landscape is “ever shifting” and the “shifting sands” require constant review and adjustment​

Sounds simple enough - albeit, according to Gartner, "Only 8% of strategy leaders report a success rate of 90% or more on long-term strategic initiatives.". Even alarming is that 67% of strategy implementation fails due to poor execution, as reported to Harvard Business Review.

A straightforward interpretation of the two data points above is that the challenge is not limited to having a strategy. The larger challenge is converting the strategy into an execution system that sustains focus over time, maintains organizational alignment, and adapts as conditions change.

Why do Strategies fail?

A survey conducted by Deloitte, has identified 3 reasons, based on the voice of the customer:

1. Failure to adequately translate the strategy

Failure to adequately translate the strategy from high-level ambition to specific actions the organization must take to make that ambition a reality.​ Only 27% of employees and 42% of managers have access to their company’s strategic plan. Only 5% of employees are aware of and/or understand the company’s strategy.

This failure mode highlights a translation gap: the organization can have a strategy, but employees cannot execute what they cannot see, and teams cannot align to what they do not understand. A useful way to operationalize “translation” is to ensure the strategy is expressed in terms of specific actions that are owned, time-bound, and visible across the organization.​

2. Failure to appropriately adapt the strategy when conditions change

Failure to appropriately adapt the strategy when conditions change.

Only 20% of organizations review strategy execution on a monthly basis. 92% of organizations reported that they do not track the key performance indicators to tell them how well they are doing in competition. This failure mode emphasizes cadence and measurement: adapting requires a regular review cycle, and a review cycle requires a shared set of indicators that reveal whether execution is working. Within the logic of the source, a monthly review cadence and KPI tracking act as a feedback loop that makes it possible to refine actions as the strategy is refined.

3. Failure to put in place the organizational capabilities required to sustain the strategy after it is enacted.

Failure to put in place the organizational capabilities required to sustain the strategy after it is enacted.​

85% of leadership teams spend less than one hour per month on strategy, and 50% spend no time at all on strategy.​ Two-thirds of IT and HR functions are not aligned with their corporate strategy.​ Just 20% of managers think their organizations do well in allocating people across business units to support strategic initiatives.

This failure mode connects leadership attention, functional alignment, and resourcing decisions to execution outcomes: if leadership time is minimal, if enabling functions are misaligned, and if talent allocation is weak, then strategy execution will struggle to sustain after launch.

Within the scope of the source, “organizational capabilities” can be treated as the ongoing ability to allocate time, align IT and HR, and allocate people across business units in a way that supports the strategic initiatives.

How to Shift from Table Top Exercise to Successful Strategy Execution?

Here's what we learned from M Mahmood, Business Strategist at MD-Konsult, who has led Business Strategy and Strategy implementation, across different size organization and is considered a subject matter expert (SME) in the area.​ A key shift implied by the section title is a move from discussion-only planning toward a repeatable operating cadence where strategy is translated into actions, monitored, and refined.​

Step 1: Ground execution in the business plan

When a business is conceived, a business plan is crafted, that covers the mission, vision, competitive advantage, go-to-market (GTM) strategy, financial models, competitive landscape...etc, over a time horizon (e.g: 5 years).​ This document is the first step that provides the north star, explaining the Why, What, How, When, Who i.e the strategic vision.

The business plan functions as a single reference point that captures the strategic vision, including the “Why, What, How, When, Who.”. Keeping it current supports the idea that strategy must be reviewed and adjusted constantly, and that execution actions should evolve as the strategy is refined.

  • [Action]: Setup a yearly review of this document, through business planning sessions.
  • [Action]: Adjust the business outlook (time horizon), based on business maturity.

The yearly review is a deliberate cadence decision, and it formalizes the idea that strategy is revisited rather than written once and archived. Adjusting the time horizon based on maturity keeps planning aligned with the business life-cycle referenced earlier, and it reinforces that strategy spans both near and long term.

Step 2: Use OKRs to define priorities

Utilize the Objective and Key Results (OKR) frame work to define the strategic priorities for the business, over the allocated time horizon Within the logic of the source, OKRs create a bridge between strategic priorities and the actions required for execution, enabling the strategy to move beyond tabletop discussion.

  • [Action] The OKR's should be set for near term (12 months) and serve as spring boards for the subsequent years.
  • [Action] Utilizing the C-Level OKR's each units in the company, crafts their OKR's, that are tied to the company level OKR's.

Setting OKRs for the near term clarifies what execution looks like in the next 12 months, while still linking to longer-term priorities. This cascading process directly addresses the earlier translation gap by connecting unit-level action to the company strategy.

Once the OKR exercise is done, every single employee in the company should have an understanding of the strategy and what is needed at an individual level to be successful. This statement ties execution success to universal clarity, implying that understanding must be distributed rather than concentrated at the leadership level.

Step 3: Monitor, report, pivot, and repeat

The OKR's are monitored company wide, at a regular cadence.​ A regular cadence of monitoring is consistent with the earlier emphasis on reviewing execution and adapting when conditions change.​

  • [Action] Utilize an Enterprise level application or even a spreadsheet (for smaller firms) to ensure accurate and honest reporting.
  • [Action] Pivot and Refine the OKR's over the reporting time horizon. Repeat the cycle.

This action implies that transparency and reporting discipline can be achieved with tools that match company size, as long as the reporting is accurate and honest. Pivoting and refining reinforces the idea that strategy and execution must be adjusted constantly as the business landscape shifts.

This final instruction implies that execution is not a one-off rollout, but a repeating loop of planning, alignment, monitoring, and refinement.​

Closing Remarks:

A business's strategy is only as good as the execution plan. The strategy execution plan carries no weight, unless the whole organization understand the red-thread that binds everyone together. A sense of collective ownership and the desire to succeed, will eventually become the firms competitive advantage. Unlike a product or service related advantage, a common desire to succeed, is not something that others can replicate.

The closing remarks emphasize an execution principle that sits underneath the earlier steps: organizational understanding of the “red-thread” binds strategy to coordinated action. They also imply that collective ownership is not only a cultural outcome but a strategic asset, because it becomes a competitive advantage that is not product or service dependent.