Strategy is sexy. Execution is really difficult. Perhaps that's why so many strategic initiatives fail. I believe that transitioning from strategy to execution is the biggest challenge facing today's organizations. Execution is a leader's job and this presentation will lay out a practical approach to ensure your strategy is executed with excellence.

1. 1

2. What is Strategy?
Building a
Strategy
Costs of Poor
Strategy
Execution
Successful
Transitions
5 Steps Tools Summary Questions
Agenda
At the end of this presentation you will be better equipped to face the single
biggest challenge facing today’s organizations:
1 2 3 4 5
2

3. What is Strategy?
• There are many definitions, but at the core, strategy is: a coordinated
set of actions to accomplish a goal
• Designed to leverage your core competencies to gain a competitive
advantage over your industry peers
Sidney Crosby, Vancouver 2010 Dyson: Innovating mature business categories Clara Hughes: Canadian cyclist & speed skater
Canadian Tire Corporation: Evolving Sporting Goods retail leader Steve Jobs & Apple: Redefining consumer electronics (market creation)
3
Lululemon: High quality Yoga clothing that makes you look great!

4. A strategy answers three fundamental questions.
4
How will you
get there?
How will you
know that you
have arrived?
Where do you
want to go?
• Differentiation
• Low Cost
• Strategic Alliance
• Acquisition
• Innovation pipeline
• Market creation
• What does success
look, feel, and smell
like?
• What metrics will you
have achieved?
• What will be different?
• To have the most
accessible retail
locations
• To be the top 5 in
revenues
• To deliver the best
service

5. Strategy is created by building a data driven situational analysis.
Situational
Analysis
Macro Scan
(PESTe)
Market/
Industry
Assessment
Customer
Research
Competitive
Intelligence
Supplier
Evaluation
Financial
Performance
Value Chain
Analysis
Strategy &
Structure
Assessment
5
ExternallyFocused
InternallyFocused

6. Information is turned into insights that inform the creation of strategy.
External Summary: Industry assessment, Opportunities &
Threats, Key Success Factors (KSF)
Internal Summary: Strengths and Weaknesses, Core
Competencies
Strategic Gap: What capabilities can we leverage to deliver
on the KSFs and fill our internal gaps?
Developing Strategic Options: Differentiation vs. Cost
strategy, ROI of options, option selection
Strategic Plan: Vision, Strategic Priorities, Tactics,
Objectives, Project Plan & Resources, Risks and
Mitigation, Success Measures
Situational
Analysis
6

7. My strategy is complete, now what?
7

8. The organizational costs of poor execution are too important to ignore!
Why is execution so difficult?
• Strategic change is often behavioural
• Behavioral change requires people to do
things differently
• However, people are most often not the
reason for poor execution
– The real enemy of execution is your day job!
(AKA: The Whirlwind)
Source: The 4 Disciplines of Execution, McChesney, Covey, Huling
Wasted Resources
Unclear Goals
Politics
Shifting Priorities
Frustration
Lack of Company Focus
No Accountability
Poor Productivity
Low commitment to Objectives
Little Faith in Leadership
8

9. “To achieve a goal you have never achieved before, you must start
doing things you have never done before.” – Stephen R. Covey
9

10. So how do we improve our chances of successful execution?
Get teams to
act on Lead
measures in
order to
achieve goals
3
Source: The 4 Disciplines of Execution, McChesney, Covey, Huling and
Personal Experience
10

11. • To build a strategy designed for execution:
– Solicit feedback from those who will be doing
the work and let them be part of the strategy
design process. It will build buy-in and
commitment to it.
– Create an aspirational vision statement that
articulates what the look and feel will be once
you have arrived at this new destination
– Articulate specific points of differentiation –
What will be different from the current state?
Paint that picture: what will it look like, smell
like, feel like for your customers and your
employees?
– Create detailed plans on how you will deliver
on the points of differentiation
– Include financial goals by year. If there are no
goals (Rev, Expense, Risk, Customer) how do
you know if you are successful?
1 - Redesign the strategy development process: keep it simple!
We will a destination for X, Y & Z;
based on A, B, & C in order to
encourage sports participation and
build customer connections in
communities.
KeyInitiatives
$392
$355
$365
$7 $9
$12
$15
$250
$300
$350
$400
$450
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
11

12. • The more you try to do, the less you will accomplish: stick to 1-3 goals
• Include SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Sensitive)
objectives where possible. It will enable greater understanding and commitment.
• Lower level objectives should ‘ladder’ up to the highest level objectives and be
tied to a benefit (financial, brand building, customer loyalty, etc)
2 - Clearly define, then focus on a small set of very important goals
Be the market share leader
Grow top line sales by 3% ($3 million) in the ABC Division
Create promotional events in the March to October timeframe to drive $2
million in incremental sales at last year’s profit margin rates.
Build a themed promotional event for Fire Safety month (October) that will
earn $X.
Meet with smoke
detector vendors in
May/June to get
special products and
costing to support Fire
Safety month.
Work with Flyer
creative to promote
the event.
Request Digital and
Media teams to create
a campaign to support
Fire Safety Month.
Outcome B
Complete for each business
unit!
Focus on small set (1-3)of very
important goals down to the
month or weekly level
12

13. 3 - Get teams to act on Lead measures in order to achieve goals
• Lead measures are more important than Lag measures! Why?
– Lag measures have happened in the past and are easier to report on
– Lead measures are virtually in your control and will help you to accomplish
your goal: you act on these to influence your Lag measures
Strategic Objective Lead Measure Lag Measure
Increase customer satisfaction Improve account management Customer Satisfaction Score
Create innovative products Change product development New product/service revenue
Broaden revenue portfolio Add 3 more products this year Revenue growth
Examples:
How? What are some actions you can take to influence this Lead measure?
• Increased calls and scheduled site visits
• Learn more about your customer(s) and add value first
• Ask users of your products about how products could be improved. Then, work
on improving the product to meet this need.
13
Source: The 4 Disciplines of Execution, McChesney, Covey, Huling

14. 4 - Create and monitor a clearly defined scoreboard
• A scoreboard helps you AND your team see how you are doing against
your small set of important goals by using your lag and lead measures
• There are four guiding principles when it comes to keeping score:
•Easy to
understand
metrics
•Use visuals
(colors, symbols)
that resonate
Simplicity
•Engaging your
team to draw
players in
•Make it FUN
Engagement
•Review
regularly
(weekly) with all
team members
•Post
scoreboard in
public
Routine
•Celebrate
success
•Support the
resolution of
challenges
Celebrate
Status: LineofBusinessInitiatives
3%
19%
55%
6%
17%
Red:Willnot
beacheived
asplanned
Yellow:At
riskofbeing
completed
Green:On-
track
Complete NotStarted
BreakdownofInitiativesbyStatus:
61%
On-Track &CompleteInitiatives
14

15. Focus on small
set of goals
Act on lead
measures to
achieve goals
Use a
scoreboard to
view progress
Regular and
frequent
reviews with
team
Team members
set own
commitments
in front of
peers
Deliver
results/address
challenges and
celebrate
success
5 - Integrate an accountability routine: a virtuous cycle of success!
An
accountability
routine creates
an execution
culture!
Reinforces
accountability and
encourages
performance!
15
Source: The 4 Disciplines of Execution, McChesney, Covey, Huling and Personal Experience

16. Template Sample – Defining and focusing on a small set of goals
• Through this iterative process, you can easily define a core set of actions and tasks that can be managed
on a weekly or monthly basis
• Notice that these are all lead measures
• This process takes time, you must make important trade-offs and prioritize
16
Goals Outcomes Strategies Actions Tasks
Be the
Market Share
Leader
Goal 2
Goal 3
Increase
revenue by
3%
Outcome 2
Create
promotional
events btwn.
June and Oct
Action 2
Fire Safety
Event (Oct)
Meet
w/Vendors
Flyer Theme
Digital &
Media
Introduce new
brand to grow
sales
Strategy 3

17. Summary
• Strategy development is ‘sexy’ and what most leaders think they need to focus
on. However, strategy must be fine tuned for execution!
• Execution is strategy’s unattractive cousin and gets low priority from people if
it is not carefully threaded into day to day operations
• Supporting a Strategy through its Execution IS A LEADER’s Job!
• The following best practices will help you:
1. Redesign your strategy development process
2. Clearly define and then focus on a small set of very important goals
3. Get teams to act on Lead measures in order to achieve goals
4. Create and monitor a clearly defined scoreboard
5. Integrate an accountability routine
• Integrating these proven techniques will greatly improve your chances to
successfully execute your important strategies!
17

18. QUESTIONS?
18
THANK YOU!

19. 19
This SlideShare is based
on a LinkedIn Post I
wrote. To read it click
here.
If you like the article,
please give it a thumbs
up and connect with me.