The following is excerpted from The Universe In A Nutshell by Stephen Hawking:
"Toward the end of the nineteenth century, scientists believed they were close to a complete description of the universe... All that was needed for a complete theory were careful measurements... Anticipating such measurements, the Jefferson Lab at Harvard University was built entirely without iron nails so as not to interfere with delicate magnetic measurements."
When people get excited about a goal, they will go to extraordinary lengths to achieve it. We will work crazy hours, miss family picnics and, well, find a way to build a building without any iron nails - which in pre-1900 construction was quite a feat. Is it possible, though, to get very small things right, but seemingly big things overlooked?
"...the planners forgot that the reddish brown bricks of which the lab and most of Harvard are built contain large amounts of iron. The building is still in use today, although Harvard is still not sure how much weight a library floor without iron nails will support." (emphasis mine)
The people asked to execute this task - with great funding and promise - paid attention to many minute details and in fact did build a building. Unfortunately rather than building a laboratory that would provide measurements to support the most important scientific thinking of the time, they ended up building a library. Imagine the immense disappointment of getting to the place where the building is done, all the equipment is loaded and ready to use. The scientists turn everything on and . . . plop. Imagine the feeling at first realizing that your beautiful machines (strategy) are surrounded by a barrier that will keep you from reaching your goal.
It is often true that product and service development efforts aimed at fulfilling a strategic vision, end short of the mark. Read any story you like regarding "renewal" or "strategic alignment" or "performance improvement" and you will, generally, read stories of sadness and missed opportunities. I suggest that in many cases we get so infatuated with strategic planning as the source of a new future that we look past a critical question: "Are we a company that executes?"
I think there are three keys to organizations which excel in execution, and it is in firms that can master these that strategic thinking can be turned to action.
You may say, "But my dear fellow, three is far too small a number for a problem of this size." And I might respond, "That kind of thinking may be precisely why you struggle to get important things done - you have too many of them!" I tell you what, nail these three in your organization and you'll be getting somewhere - you will notice it. Then I'll give you the next three. Until then, you don't need 4,5 and 6 - they'll just clutter your thinking.
1. A Clear Set of Priorities. You will likely agree that is hard to make a decision among alternatives where each one is just as important as another. I've seen priority lists where there are numerous "priority 1" initiatives listed. How, then, are people to make decisions about where to spend time and allocate scarce resources? They don't. They can't. They won't. They spread themselves and others too thin and the things we must get an 'A' on we end up getting a 'C'. Here is the test, ask three of your peers what the three most important things in your business are for 2010 - the things that if nothing else gets done these will. If you don't get the same answer from each, you have a window - a giant, overlooking the Pacific Ocean type bay window - into your execution problems. This is stop light issue: if you don't have alignment at the top you won't have it anywhere else - and you will struggle.
2. Disciplined People and Processes. Getting things done requires people that are disciplined thinkers and organize work, and others, well. They make connections from one thing to another and - often unconsciously - build models in their heads around how things work together. You need people who are diligent in details. By the way , this must be true across the organization. We are very selective about project leaders, etc. but what about the rest of the people on the team? A good project manager cannot make up for 10 others who are disorganized and poor collaborators. I don't know if everyone needs to be Six Sigma black belts or not - I've seen these types become slaves to their process and someone not trained in it run wildly successful efforts - but there needs to be a single commonly held approach to managing projects and resolving issues.
3. A Culture of Resolution & Willingness To Make Trade-off Decisions. There is a string that runs through your organization, a part of its fiber. How dogged we are at sticking to the job at hand, at focusing on the important and resolutely solving every issue that comes about. This is NOT an unwavering commitment to the way we envision things at the start - it's to results and making a difference for our business. This may - actually, almost certainly will - require some hard decisions along the way among Timeline, Quality, Features and Cost. Look to see if these tradeoffs are always getting kicked upstairs - if so, your not being clear enough for people to execute. (I'll write later about how to make these tradeoffs - or, at least how I do it.)
Strategy is fun and intellectually challenging. Executives -yes me included - can sometimes be lulled into thinking they've done their job once finished. It is also the key role of leadership to translate that strategy into a useful decision framework which disciplined, committed people can use to make the needed adjustments for execution.
.
