This is the first course of the Business Execution series.

Execution is a complex business and has various driving factors. High performance companies usually have the skills in place to drive successful strategy execution.

Planning and execution are integrally linked. While planning provides the foundation for strategy and is a time consuming and important task, it doesn't get the job done.

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Given that the drivers are so complex, execution of strategy can be a difficult and obstacle-ridden business.

Use this follow-on activity to assess strategy execution issues within your own organization.

Company leaders should display behaviors conducive to execution to ensure active involvement.

There are three cornerstones of effective strategy execution. The first of these is leadership behavior. You need to secure active involvement of company leaders to ensure effective strategy execution.

Use this learning aid to review the characteristics of a leader at a manufacturing plant.

The second cornerstone of strategy execution involves having people in the right roles. Responsibility in any organization is divided among many different levels, such as leaders, middle management, and the workforce.

National Bank Strategy Execution

Whereas leaders are mainly responsible for defining strategy, middle management is responsible for strategy execution. Line managers must understand both the strategy and the workforce assigned to execute it to ensure the right people are in place.

The workforce interacts with customers, suppliers, and each other so employees are in the best position to execute the organization's strategy.

Roles and Responsibilities

The third cornerstone in strategy execution is creating and managing a culture of execution.

It's no good having all tiers of the organizational chart focused on getting things done if the company culture simply doesn't support delivering on plans. The third cornerstone is creating and managing a culture of execution.

Now that you have an idea what makes up a strong culture of execution, you have to determine how to achieve it in your own organization.

Use this learning aid to review how the department store created a culture of execution.

The second step when creating and managing a culture of execution is providing employees with adequate education and allowing time for employees to socialize with coworkers.

The third step to create a strong culture of execution is to communicate. Effective communication leads to genuine understanding of strategy execution.

Use this job aid to help you create or manage a culture of execution.

There are three cornerstones of effective strategy execution. The first of these is leadership behavior. You need to secure active involvement of company leaders to ensure effective strategy execution.

It's no good having all tiers of the organizational chart focused on getting things done if the company culture simply doesn't support delivering on plans. The third cornerstone is creating and managing a culture of execution.

Strategy is executed over time by managers in every level of a company as they commit resources, programs, people, and facilities to the business strategy. So business leaders concerned with strategy execution need to know who controls which resources and who has the most influence on strategy execution.

This is the first course of the Business Execution series.

This is the second course of the Business Execution series.

Business strategy involves making decisions about what a company should do and how it should allocate resources.

Without a clear plan of action, most businesses wouldn't be able to operate effectively. Think about it – if managers made decisions without considering their impact, things would fall apart pretty quickly.

The first step in defining the strategy is to clarify the mission, vision, and values. These three items form the basis of the company's purpose, actions, and aspirations.

Once you've clarified the mission, vision, and values, it's time to review your company's current situation – the second step in defining the strategy.

You've clarified your mission, vision, and values. You have a good idea of your company's current situation. Now you can use that information to create strategy direction statements.

Use this job aid to help you perform the three steps in defining your own executable strategy.

Good execution begins with good business strategy. An executable strategy must be planned, integrated, measurable, and supportable.

Without a good business strategy, most companies would find it difficult to reach their goals. Strategy development is an essential aspect of execution.

You've already learned that the first step in creating your business strategy is to define the strategy. Now it's time to move on to the second step in creating strategy that executes: develop the strategy.

Use this job aid to perform the four steps required to develop a business strategy.

The final two aspects of strategy that can affect execution are translating initiatives into strategic targets and allocating resources to initiatives.

When you're developing an executable strategy, you need to take four key steps. You've already learned about the first two – selecting strategic initiatives based on themes and assigning accountability to initiatives.

The final step in developing strategy involves allocating resources to initiatives. This places demands on a company's skills, resources, and capabilities. Resource allocation must align strictly with overall strategy.

The final step in developing strategy involves allocating resources to initiatives. This places demands on a company's skills, resources, and capabilities. Resource allocation must align strictly with overall strategy.

Business strategy involves making decisions about what the company should do and how it should allocate resources. These decisions should take into account current competitive conditions and growth opportunities in the industry. Remember, good execution begins with good strategy.

Strategy development is an essential aspect of execution. There are two aspects of the strategy that can have an effect on its execution: the kind of strategy, and how it is translated into plans.

Successful execution depends on how well you translate the initiatives into strategic targets. These targets are the short-term operational metrics that are linked directly to your company's long-term needs. If you want to achieve the long-term goals, you must manage the short-term targets well.

This is the second course of the Business Execution series

This is the third course of the Business Execution series.

Creating an exceptional strategy doesn't guarantee that it'll be executed successfully. To ensure your strategy is implemented effectively, it's important that employees understand how their work fits in with the big picture.

All too often, organizations create well-formulated strategies that appear to take every contingency into account, but fail to get the desired results. On paper, your organization may have a brilliant plan.

Before communicating strategies to employees, you first need to consider your organization's mission, values, and vision. These concepts are central to most companies.

Having developed a strategy based on your mission, values, and vision statements, you then communicate this strategy by applying several important principles.

Purpose: Use this job aid to review principles for communicating your organization's corporate strategy.

As a leader, an effective way of aligning operational processes within your organization is to use a corporate balanced scorecard.

Suppose you've created a strategy based on your company's mission, values, and vision statements. And suppose you've communicated this strategy to your employees so they understand and support the plan.

Your organization's corporate strategy is represented by a high-level balanced scorecard. But to execute this strategy, you need to translate this high-level scorecard into department, team, and individual scorecards.

The next principle of cascading BSCs is that each business unit should examine the high-level scorecard and select the objective that it can execute.

The final principle when cascading BSCs is that all the business unit scorecards combined should cover all the high-level objectives. Just because your organization has created scorecards for each department, unit, or team doesn't necessarily mean they're all aligned to the high-level objectives.

Purpose: Use this job aid to find out how to align your corporate scorecard to other levels within your organization.

When cascading your corporate scorecard, you must link employees' personal objectives with your organization's strategy. Once you've aligned individual scorecards to the high-level scorecard, you need to create a clear picture for your staff of how their tasks can affect the success of the strategy.

Good strategy execution depends on having employees with the right competencies in the right places. Essential competencies involve knowledge or expertise of a particular area, abilities such as interpersonal skills, and personal values such as honesty, creativity, and customer focus.

As a leader, you must nurture a talented workforce to help your organization execute its strategy. Decisions about strategic direction are essentially decisions about talent.

Clearly, competent employees are one of your organization's most valuable resources. Without the right knowledge, skills, and values in place, it can be a costly and time-wasting exercise to implement your organization's strategy.

The first step in assessing employee competencies is to create a detailed list of competencies required for each strategic position in your organization.

The next step in the competency assessment process is to identify gaps in an employee's portfolio of competencies. At this stage, you need to compare the results of your employee assessment to the requirements of the position.

The next step in the process of assessing employee competency is to create a development plan to address gaps in your employees' portfolios of competencies.

Purpose: Use this follow-on activity to analyze what competencies are required for a specific position in your organization, what competencies employees currently have, and how they may be developed.

All too often, organizations create well-formulated strategies that appear to take every contingency into account, but fail to get the desired results. One key reason may be because they don't clearly communicate their strategic goals to employees.

The balanced scorecard, or BSC, is a performance management process that can help you monitor your employees' objectives and ensure their tasks align with your organization's goals.

Organizations are increasingly reliant on having people with the right competencies. Creating an executable strategy means having the desired competency in place.

This is the third course of the Business Execution series.

This is the fourth part of the Business Execution series.

Strategies are only useful when they're implemented effectively. To ensure that a strategy is effective, execution needs to be monitored on an ongoing basis.

Organizations spend a lot of time and resources on developing effective business strategies. However, strategies are only useful when they're implemented effectively.

Executives at the corporate level can integrate and monitor scorecard perspectives using a second method of monitoring – strategic dashboards. These dashboards help to link management reporting to the execution of strategic objectives.

A key use of strategic dashboards is to provide information during quarterly strategy review meetings. Review meetings are the third method you can use to monitor implementation.

Reviewing employee engagement is the fourth method for monitoring implementation. This is a key metric, as engaged employees can increase profitability and customer loyalty.

Use this job aid as a guide when selecting methods for monitoring strategy execution.

A good way to analyze how a project or strategy is progressing is to conduct a variance analysis. This involves assessing the differences between the intended objectives and end results.

Having a strategy that's appropriate and adaptable is critical for success. However, a strategy is useless if it can't be evaluated against results.

Evaluation usually takes place once the implementation process is underway and it's continuous throughout the execution of a strategy. The strategic planning process itself should also be reviewed.

The second step in the evaluation process is to assess priorities for dealing with these variances. You first need to establish which part of the strategy is causing the variances.

The third step in the process is planning what corrective actions to take to address areas that may be associated with the root cause of a variance – the organization's vision, strategy map, achievement targets, or the program itself.

The fourth and final step in the evaluation process is to record lessons learned. Organizations should use this process as an opportunity to continually learn more about their own strategic planning processes.

Use this job aid as a guide to evaluating the results of strategy execution.

When changing strategy to deal with changing circumstances, a new team should be established. The team should follow four steps when altering the strategy.

Strategy comes full circle after it has been evaluated. The organization's vision, strategy map, achievement targets, and a program of execution are all analyzed during strategy development.

Once problems are identified and their root cause investigated, those accountable need to follow through on fixing them. If the results aren't as expected, either the strategy or the tactics you use to implement it need to change.

When altering strategy, there are four steps to help focus on the problem and its solution. The first is to focus on the mission of the organization and its strategic direction. Second, try to coordinate the systems and execution processes already in place.

Organizations spend a lot of time and resources on developing effective business strategies. However, strategies are only useful when they're implemented effectively.

Having a strategy that's appropriate and adaptable is critical for success. However, a strategy is useless if it can't be evaluated against results.

Once evaluation of execution has taken place, these components of strategy then become areas of change. The root causes of variances discovered during evaluation are linked back to one or more of these change categories.

This is the fourth course of the Business Execution series.

You think knowing stuff changes the game? You think sitting in a library, stacking up facts like you’re building a Jenga tower, is gonna make you a winner? Man, that’s cute. But life ain't a trivia night. Information alone? It’s worthless. It’s like having a Lamborghini in your garage but you never learned how to drive. You just sit in it, making engine noises. Vroom vroom. People walk by, they see the car, but they also see you ain't going nowhere. You got all this knowledge, all these textbooks, but when life throws a punch, you’re still looking up the definition of "duck." It’s what you *do* with that information that actually matters. Don't be the person with the shiny car and no keys.