A Brilliant Strategy, Blockbuster Product, Or Breakthrough Technology Can Put You On The Competitive Map, But Only Solid Execution Can Keep You There.
management
Description
A brilliant strategy, blockbuster product, or
breakthrough technology can put you on the
competitive map, but only solid execution can
keep you there. You have to be able to deliver
on your intent. Unfortunately, the majority of
companies aren’t very good at it, by their own
admission. Over the past five years, we have
invited many thousands of employees (about
25% of whom came from executive ranks) to
complete an online assessment of their organizations’ capabilities, a process that’s generated
a database of 125,000 profiles representing
more than 1,000 companies, government
agencies, and not-for-profits in over 50 countries. Employees at three out of every five
companies rated their organization weak at
execution—that is, when asked if they agreed
with the statement “Important strategic and
operational decisions are quickly translated
into action,” the majority answered no.
Execution is the result of thousands of decisions made every day by employees acting
according to the information they have and
their own self-interest. In our work helping
more than 250 companies learn to execute
more effectively, we’ve identified four fundamental building blocks executives can use to
influence those actions—clarifying decision
rights, designing information flows, aligning
motivators, and making changes to structure. (For simplicity’s sake we refer to them
as decision rights, information, motivators,
and structure.)
In efforts to improve performance, most organizations go right to structural measures
because moving lines around the org chart
seems the most obvious solution and the
changes are visible and concrete. Such steps
generally reap some short-term efficiencies
quickly, but in so doing address only the
symptoms of dysfunction, not its root causes.
Several years later, companies usually end up
in the same place they started. Structural
change can and should be part of the path to
improved execution, but it’s best to think of it
as the capstone, not the cornerstone, of any
organizational transformation. In fact, our
research shows that actions having to do with
