STRATEGY TO EXECUTION EXECUTION TO STRATEGY What is the mantra

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STRATEGY TO EXECUTIONEXECUTION TO STRATEGY
What is the mantra

• By Reetu Raina
• Head OD-India at Amdocs

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What is a Strategy
HEART
HEAD
HAND
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What makes Strategy to succeed
Good Execution Strategy
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Strategic Planning

• Strategic planning is an organization's process
  of defining its strategy, or direction, and
  making decisions on allocating its resources to
  pursue this strategy, including its capital and
  people. Various business analysis techniques can
  be used in strategic planning, including SWOT
  analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
  and Threats ) and PEST analysis (Political,
  Economic, Social, and Technological analysis) or
  STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological,
  Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors) and
  EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatic,
  Social, Technological, Economic and Legal).

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What does it mean

• Strategic planning is the formal consideration of
  an organization's future course. All strategic
  planning deals with at least one of three key
  questions
• "What do we do?"
• "For whom do we do it?"
• "How do we excel?"

But often What eats whom and especially how
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Execution of strategies

• But good strategies fail too, and when that
  happens, it's often harder to pinpoint the
  reasons. Yet despite the obvious importance of
  good planning and execution, relatively few
  management thinkers have focused on what kinds of
  processes and leadership are best for turning a
  strategy into results.

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Contd

• But can better execution be taught?
• You can develop a model.... If people know what
  the key variables are, they know what to look for
  and what questions to ask."

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Basic Reason

• While execution can go wrong for a variety of
  reasons, one of the most basic may be allowing
  the focus of the strategy to shift over time.

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Goal- shifting

• The attempt by Hewlett-Packard, after it acquired
  Compaq, to compete with Dell in PCs through scale
  is a classic example of goal-shifting --
  competing on price one week, service the next,
  while trying to sell through often conflicting,
  high-cost channels. The result CEO Carly Fiorina
  lost her job and HP still must resolve some key
  strategic issues.

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Mantra 1
Keep the Focus Steady
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Goal and Means

• Another classic example of mis-synchronization
  United Air Lines' TED, which attempted to set up
  a competitive subsidiary to compete against
  upstarts such as Southwest. This was a good idea
  as far as it went, but United tried to compete
  using its same old cost structure -- the main
  reason it was losing markets to the low-cost
  airlines in the first place.

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Mantra 2
Synchronization of Goals and Means
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Communication Acceptance

• At other times, plans fail simply because they
  don't get communicated to all the people
  involved.
• Strategies also flop because individuals resist
  the change. For example, headquarters might want
  more standardization in a product, but a local
  marketing executive disagrees with the idea. "He
  might say, 'I need more nuts in my chocolate bar'
  or 'I need a different pack size,'"

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Mantra 3
Focus on Key levers which can make or mar
strategy execution typically it is Communication
and Acceptance
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Why resistance

• Many times, there can be sound reasons for
  resistance. Sometimes a strategy might make sense
  at the highest level, but its full impact on the
  whole organization has not been fully considered,
• For example, imagine that the general strategy
  calls for promoting one brand throughout the
  company while taking resources away from another
  brand. That might make sense in one market, yet
  be completely counterproductive elsewhere

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Cultural Factors

• Cultural factors can also hinder execution.
  Companies sometimes try to apply a tried-and-true
  strategy without realizing that they are
  operating in markets that require a different
  approach. Even such a world-beater at execution
  as Wal-Mart, for instance, has sometimes made
  some missteps because of culture. One example
  When Wal-Mart first moved in to Brazil, it tried
  to lay down terms with suppliers in the same way
  it does in the U.S., where it carries huge weight
  in the market. Suppliers simply refused to play,
  and the company was forced to reevaluate its
  strategy.

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Mantra4
Strategy can be as strong as its weakest link
Dont forget even the factors we consider least
at times e.g. Culture or demographics
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Execute Inattention

• Yet the biggest factor of all may be executive
  inattention. Once a plan is decided upon, there
  is often surprisingly little follow-through to
  ensure that it is executed,

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Mantra 4
Consistent Attention
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Consistent Monitor and Tracking

• "Less than 15 of companies routinely track how
  they perform over how they thought they were
  going to perform,
• Instead, only the first year's goals are measured
  -- and executives often set first-year goals
  deliberately low in order to meet a threshold for
  a bonus.

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Culture of Accountability

• One school emphasizes people Just put the right
  people in place and the right things will get
  done. However, within the people school, there
  are also divisions. Some experts insist that the
  right people are hired, not made.
• the key is to improve executive performance
  through training, and improve the average
  employee's performance through the creation of a
  culture of accountability.

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Cont..

• For example, W. James McNerney, Jr., the chairman
  and CEO of 3M, argues that by improving the
  average performance of every individual by 15,
  irrespective of what his or her role is, a
  company can achieve and sustain
  consistently superior performance.

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Mantra 5
Culture of Accountability
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Five Keys to Getting the Job Done

• Develop a model for execution.
• Choose the right metrics.
• - sales and market share are always going to be
  the dominant metrics of business

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Cont.

• Don't forget the plan. 
• - plans are often simply agreed to and then
  forgotten !
• Assess performance frequently.
• - Performance monitoring is still an annual
  affair at most companies. The reason why Wal-Mart
  is so good at execution is it knows daily if what
  it is doing in each of its stores gets results or
  not

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Cont

• By shortening the performance monitoring cycle --
  from quarter-by-quarter to month-by-month or
  week-by-week -- top management can get more
  "real-time" feedback on the quality of execution
  down the line.  
• Communicate. 
• - companies often go wrong by creating a cultural
  distinction between the executives who design a
  strategy and people lower down in the corporate
  hierarchy who carry it out.

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WYDIWYG

• Strategy is Execution. Another way of saying this
  is WYDIWG What You DO Is What You Get.
• Strategy Is . . .
• Strategy is many things plan, pattern, position,
  ploy and perspective. As plan, strategy relates
  how we intend realizing our goals.

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Strategy is Execution

• Strategy is getting it right and doing it right.
  On the one hand, we have to envision the right
  course of action. On the other hand, once chosen,
  we have to carry it out properly

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Do we want to be guilty

• If our strategy and its execution are both
  flawed, the effort is "doomed from the
  beginning." Our chances of success are zero, nil
• If our strategy is sound but its execution is
  flawed, we are guilty of muffing it

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Execution is Strategy

• In the early 1980s, Tom Peters made a
  presentation to a group of senior managers at
  ATT in which he used a slide that read,
  "Execution is strategy." We can turn that around
  and also say that strategy is execution. In
  simpler terms, we adapt to changing circumstances
  and so does our strategy. Thus it is that
  strategy as envisioned or contemplated becomes
  strategy as executed or realized

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What does Execution Strategy mean at Amdocs

• Focused Approach
• Play Specialists
• Culture of accountability
• Continuous Monitoring

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Focused Approach

• Organizations that successfully execute even
  mediocre strategies far outperform those that
  fail to execute the most brilliant of plans!
  According to Fortune Magazine, "less than 10 of
  strategies effectively formulated are effectively
  executed."
• Identifying focus and time frame for the focus
  should be part of execution strategy

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Play Specialists

• How to Get There From Where You Are Today?
• When an organization commits to execution
  strategy it must do so in steps or stages.
  Tackling all of the various components at once --
  no matter how focused and motivated an
  organization is -- is simply not feasible.
• Executors have to be separated from thinkers.
• Create a model of execution

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• Developing organizational structures that foster
  information sharing, coordination, and clear
  accountability
• Developing effective controls and feedback
  mechanisms
• Knowing how to create an execution-supportive
  culture
• Exercising execution-biased leadership

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• Without guidance, individuals do the things they
  think are important, often resulting in
  uncoordinated, divergent, even conflicting
  decisions and actions.
• Having a model or roadmap positively affects
  execution success.
• It all begins with strategy. Execution cannot
  occur until one has something to execute. Bad
  strategy begets poor execution and poor outcomes,
  so it's important to focus first on a sound
  strategy.

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Culture of Accountability

• Clear Responsibility and Accountability
• This is one of the most important prerequisites
  for successful execution, as basic as it sounds.
• Managers must know who's doing what, when, and
  why, as well as who's accountable for key steps
  in the execution process. Without clear
  responsibility and accountability, execution
  programs will go nowhere. Knowing how to achieve
  this clarity is central to execution success.

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• While competitors are the ones who set the agenda
  and rule of the game in red oceans, competition
  becomes insignificant in blue oceans.

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Twelve strategies for instilling a culture of
execution in your organization

• Build accountability into meetings
• Be realistic. Many strategies fail because
  leaders don't make a realistic assessment of
  whether the organization can execute the plan.
• Focus on a few priorities. I've seen
  organizations with strategic plans that detail
  twenty large strategies for one year.

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Cont.

• Ensure employees understand priorities. This may
  sound simple, but my experience is that most
  employees are not brought into the loop about
  what is important to the organization.
• Set milestones. Break down every organizational
  project into specific milestones with action
  items and dates. Communicate these milestones to
  employees and review the status at each project
  meeting.

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Cont.

• Use your business plan. Is your business plan
  collecting dust? Many organizations go through
  the motions of spending two days every year
  developing strategic and business plans, only to
  stick them in the bottom of the drawer untouched

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Cont.

• Hold people at the top accountable. If line
  managers are not executing, it's usually because
  their leader does not have an accountability
  structure in place. Leaders need to take
  ownership of their initiatives and follow-up with
  managers to ensure completion

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Cont.

• Promote candid dialog. This is one of the biggest
  reasons why things don't get done in
  organizations. Many managers don't want to rock
  the boat, so they are very polite and don't
  challenge each other or their leaders. This often
  leads to failed projects and initiatives because
  managers weren't honest with each other.

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Cont.

• What processes could have been better? Did we
  meet our time commitments? If not, why? Use this
  information to improve processes and hold people
  accountable.
• Confront performance issues. Some managers put
  off confronting performance issues because it's
  unpleasant and takes time.