THINKING strategically is not good enough. DOING is what really matters!

It’s not the strategy that fails, it’s the IMPLEMENTATION.

Every so often a new management “religion “or fad emerges. 

Group think sets in, everyone repeats the magic phrases and pretty soon you have to have the new book on your desk, so people know you are “with it.” 

The latest buzz in the management world is about strategic THINKING.

It is being said that the ability to plan strategically is the most important leadership skill you can have.

In addition to seeing, predicting and planning ahead, you are being told to get your employees to think strategically.  You are to provide your employees with information, you communicate a mission statement, and you reward thinking and not reaction.

Really?

Whatever happened to IMPLEMENTATION?

Strategies fail because of poor implementation, not because the strategy is poor.

I fully agree that that the thinking is necessary, that’s pretty obvious.

However, the majority of strategies fail because of appallingly poor implementation.

Without effective implementation thinking is of little use.  No matter how much those in the board room get excited about their proposed strategy it is pretty useless unless implementation is the chief outflow of the plan.

Poor implementation demotivates staff, and their reaction is entirely predictable. Cynicism and ridicule will follow.  They have seen grand plans fail before.

There is no point in getting your employees to think strategically if implementation is not an essential part of the company’s strategy.

Strategy is the exciting, glamorous part.

Implementation is a discipline and it’s certainly not glamorous.  It requires hard dedicated work and commitment, tenacity and a degree of flexibility.  Without Implementation you have no Strategy.

Unless you focus on the requirements of implementing your strategy, it will remain a wish and an unfulfilled dream.

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