Strategy Execution – Establishing the Conditions for Success

The purpose of strategy execution is to turn strategic intent into operational reality. It’s the series of decisions and actions aimed at changing an organisation’s trajectory, from one taking it to its default future to one that takes it to an improved future. These decisions and actions are usually undertaken within some form of transformation programme. However, all the evidence …

Should Strategies be Implemented or Operationalised, and what’s the Difference?

While there are many approaches to executing strategy they are all based upon two fundamentally different philosophies. One is where an organisation is ‘pushed’ to its target future. The other is where it is ‘pulled’. Which approach an organisation applies can determine how successful it is in turning strategic intent into operational reality. The ‘push’ approach is usually called implementation. …

Operationalising Strategy – Turning Strategic Intent into Operational Reality

David Trafford and Peter Boggis argue that there is often more to operationalising strategy than making structural changes, redesigning processes and training staff. For strategies to be truly successful, leaders need to create the conditions that enable the organisation to pull itself into an improved future – a future that not only reflects the strategic intent, but also becomes operational …

Why is Transformational Change so Difficult?

Marketing and Networking University, 25 October 2017 All the available evidence indicates that organisations are not good at delivering transformational change. Whether the transformation involves merging with another company, replatforming core IT systems or changing culture to become more customer-centric, the success rate – in terms of achieving the targets set at the outset – is often said to be …

Why Most Strategies Fail to Deliver

MBA World, 7 November 2017 Before the financial crisis of 2008, the leaders of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) claimed that they didn’t need a strategy, as everything they did led to success! Maybe if they’d had a strategy the UK Government wouldn’t have had to inject £45 billion of taxpayers’ money to save the bank. In reality, RBS …

Operationalising Ideas

Thinkers50, 28 December 2017 Ideas are important, as without ideas there can be no progress. But not all ideas are good or make a positive contribution to business and society. Some ideas may be interesting – and possibly intellectually stimulating – but are of no other value when it comes to informing organisational strategy and transformational change. The potential value …