STRATEGY EXECUTION ACCELERATOR

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90% of organisations fail to implement their strategy according to different studies from Kaplan & Norton, from the Economist or from McKinsey. Before we go further, we need to acknowledge the elephant in the room: STRATEGY FAILS.

Only 8% of top leaders are good at both strategy definition and strategy execution. Let’s acknowledge the second elephant in the room: STRATEGY LEADERSHIP FAILS.

STRATEGY PITFALLS

Our first task is to identify what is failing, what are the strategy pitfalls:

1. The time barrier

2. The resources barrier

3. The data barrier

4. The communication barrier

5. The performance barrier

6. The incentives barrier

7. The change barrier

8. The team and skills barrier

9. The initiatives barrier

10. The culture barrier

11. Etc.

When it comes to strategy, many companies fall into the Strategy Bermuda Triangle. Their great strategic aspirations disappear somewhere between poor definition, poor execution and poor empowerment. We need to be aware of these pitfalls and we need to navigate our strategy carefully so we don't fall into it.

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It is time to debunk the most common strategy myths:

1. Myth #1 Workshop Hangover: The first strategy myth to blast is what I call the Workshop Hangover. Usually Strategy starts with a nice annual offsite in a beautiful place, where top leaders think out of the box, and drink out of the box. They come out with the most disruptive ideas. They have great time. But usually the same people come back to their office on Monday and they continue with business as usual. As if nothing happened!

2. Myth #2 Bullshit Bingo: This strategy workshop often includes complex buzzwords. But Strategy is not a collection of trendy terminologies. I call that the bullshit bingo. All these methods can be very cool, but they won’t necessarily help you achieve your specific strategic outcomes. They are a means to an end. Some of these levers can be fancy, but more often, they are not, and that is perfectly fine.

3. Myth #3 Decorative Strategy: Our top leaders crystallise the strategic insights into the sacrosanct “Mission and Vision”. I have to say that it looks great printed on a wall. But strategy is not a wishful thinking. If you aim to change the world, you need to figure out how to get there, if not what you have is not a strategy, but only a decorative strategy.

4. Myth #4 500 Pager Document: The executives will finalise the process by compiling a 500 pager document. It is time to burn your thick and complex strategic plan that no one understands, and to rather focus on strategic relevance, clarity and impact.

5. Myth #5 Execution Hallucination: Executives are usually very busy but they struggle to make the needle to move. They are stuck in execution hallucination. They implement initiatives without looking at their strategic impact, they build complex performance management models that drive low to no motivation nor contribution to strategy, they compile lengthy scorecards that doesn’t help to take better decisions.

Because of these myths, many strategic plans lack true strategic depth. Often, "your strategy needs a strategy," to borrow from Martin Reeves, Claire Love, and Philipp Tillmanns in their Harvard Business Review article of the same name. See article below ?

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There are four key words that you can use as guiding principles while crafting and implementing your strategy:

1. Transformation

Strategy implies embarking on a transformational process that will reshape your organisation. Max McKeown highlights this aspect in his definition of strategy. He says that “Strategy is about shaping the future. It is the attempt to get to desirable ends with available means”.

2. Choice

Donald Sull, from MIT says that “Strategy is a framework to guide critical choices to achieve a desired future”. Strategy is choosing. Choosing a direction, choosing what to offer to your shareholders, clients and stakeholders, choosing what strategic levers to focus on, choosing what strategic initiatives to prioritise and implement, etc. Strategy is choosing what to do, but also (or mainly) choosing what NOT to do.

3. Action

Too many strategists are great thinkers, but poor doers. Strategy is often misunderstood as a theoretical exercise that we never really implement. Like Ellie Pidot described it in a very unconventional way, “Strategy is a fancy word for coming up with a long-term plan and putting it into action”.

4. Simplicity

Leonardo da Vinci coined that famous sentence “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. In a strategy field where we are dealing with complex matters, high uncertainty, difficult calls, complex solutions, your role as strategy leader is precisely to simplify. Simplicity is therefore critical when it comes to designing a great strategy.

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The Strategy framework is simple yet extremely robust. It divides the strategy process into three main phases:

1. Define your plan

2. Frame your execution

3. Empower your team
   

Stage 1 is subdivided into 3 critical steps:

1. Step 1 UNDERSTAND: Understand what makes your organisation unique, what are your strengths and weaknesses, understand the forces taking place in your industry, understand the trends shaping the future of the World.

2. Step 2 ASPIRE: Once you understand the current World in which you operate, you need to craft your Moonshot! Describe what success will look like for your organisation in the next 10 or 20 years! Identify your deep purpose, clarify your strategic aspiration

3. Step 3 BRIDGE: Once you have identified your moonshot, you need to bridge the gap between what is: your current situation and what could be: your desired moonshot. It’s time to build your rocket.

Stage 2 is subdivided into 3 critical steps:

1. Step 1 AIM: Aim refers to setting clear and ambitious strategic objectives. You want to summarise the essence of the entire strategy into a handful number of Strategic goals

2. Step 2 ACT: Act refers to selecting a few transformational projects, equipping them with sufficient financial and human resources, and ensuring their successful execution

3. Step 3 TRACK: Track refers to the monitoring model: You need to first track your actions (are you doing what you were supposed to do), but you also have to track your achievements (are you moving the needle and achieving your desired strategic outcomes). This tracking model will ultimately guide you, it will offer a strategic decision canvas, so you and your team can take the right decisions along your strategic transformation.

Stage 3 is also subdividing into 3 critical steps: We call it the "3C"

1. Step 1 COORDINATE: C for Coordinate; In order to increase strategic cooperation and collaboration, you need to coordinate efforts and be sure that everyone rows in the same direction.

2. Step 2 COMMUNICATE: C for Communicate; In order to Empower employees and stakeholders, organisations must clearly communicate the strategy and build a strategy focused culture

3. STEP 3 CHANGE: C for Change; In order to succeed in this endeavour, you must embrace the change and manage it proactively

   
   

READ MORE

• Download the Strategy Framework overview (PDF)

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To run at your optimum speed, you might need to shed a few kilograms.

1. “Losing weight” becomes your Strategic Objective—it’s what you’re aiming for.

2. How do you achieve this goal? Let’s say you decide to start a diet. This diet is your Strategic Initiative.

3. How do you track your progress? You should track both the number of calories you consume each day (you’re tracking your efforts) AND the number of kilograms you’re losing (you’re tracking your achievements).

This simple example perfectly illustrates the three key components of a solid strategy execution framework:

1. AIM for ambitious Objectives: lose weight

2. ACT with clear actions: start your diet

3. TRACK both your efforts (like counting calories) and your results (the kilograms you’re shedding, hopefully!).

NOTE:

The name of your "diet" doesn’t really matter. Call it a Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Objectives and Key Results (OKR), Management by Objectives (MBO), or use SMART goals, fancy Key Performance Indicators, or any other trendy tool you’ve discovered online—it’s entirely up to you. This training is actually tool-agnostic.

BUT…

The tool you use is far less important than the principles you follow. Too many organisations have built state-of-the-art Balanced Scorecards or Objectives and Key Results but these often drive zero value. Instead, we will focus on the critical principles to help you excel at strategy execution, and drive impact!

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“Sound strategy starts with having the right goal” - Michael Porter

“The secret to success is setting the right goals” - John Doerr

1. Following the advice of these experts, many organisations end up with extensive lists of strategic objectives. They produce lengthy documents covering every possible goal, aspiration, risk, impact, and assumption. While this is well-intentioned and commendable, it often leads to the dreaded 500-page document pitfall we discussed earlier. You may have been in a meeting where the CEO presents a “clear” set of hundreds of objectives, and you find yourself thinking, “What is going on here?”

2. On the flip side, some leaders take the opposite approach, summarising their objectives into a single keyword or idea. For example, your boss might ask for “More!”. But more what? More how? This approach is clearly too vague, lacking both clarity and granularity

So, how do you tackle this challenge?

You need to distill all your strategic objectives into a single page—no more, no less. You might think that creating a single page is easier than producing 500. But it’s actually much harder. Mark Twain once said, “I’ve written you a long letter because I didn’t have time to write you a short one.” This is especially true when it comes to strategic objectives.

In the next section, we will focus on building your AIM Stratpage, summarising your entire strategic plan into just one page. This is challenging because it requires achieving both Simplicity and Accuracy.

Additionally, this single page must serve as both a management tool for your executive committee, and a communication tool for your workforce and stakeholders, helping them buy into an inspiring, transformative strategy. The AIM Stratpage is really the Cornerstone of your Strategy Execution Framework.

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Imagine your AIM Stratpage as an iceberg.

ABOVE:

What you see above the sea level represents your strategic outcomes—the results you aim to deliver to your shareholders, clients, and/or stakeholders. This is where you find the three possible value propositions:

1. Value proposition to shareholders, through financial returns.

2. Value proposition to clients, by delivering unique value.

3. Value proposition to society, by creating broader impact.

But remember, these are just the visible results of a well-executed strategy. There’s more beneath the surface.

BELOW:

It’s is important to note that the hierarchy of the AIM Stratpage isn’t top-down. What’s at the top isn’t necessarily more important; it’s just the outcome of your strategy. To understand the full picture, you need to look below the sea level.

1. Strategic Levers

Beneath the waterline, you’ll find the strategic levers—the critical actions your organisation must take to achieve those outcomes.

When building your AIM Stratpage, the key is to unpack these levers and identify the specific objectives you’re chasing. Keep your focus limited to what’s absolutely essential. These objectives should become your laser focus, driving everything you will do. And here’s the crucial part: it’s all about cause and effect. By achieving these levers, you pave the way to reach your strategic outcomes.

2. Strategic Enablers

Lower down, beneath the strategic levers, you’ll find the strategic enablers. These are the key components that unlock your strategy. Don’t be fooled by their position at the bottom. They are the very foundation of your strategy. Without them, your AIM Stratpage would crumble like a house of cards.

While outcomes are visible above the water, the real work happens below the surface, where Strategic Levers and Strategic Enablers lie.

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The AIM Stratpage is more than just a management tool—it's a LEADERSHIP tool.

It translates your strategic intent in a powerful, concise tool. It not only reflects your strategic direction but also your leadership style and priorities. It tells a compelling story about where you want to take this organisation—all on one page.

SHAREHOLDERS vs STAKEHOLDERS Focus:

You can choose where to play on the Shareholders vs. Stakeholders spectrum by building a specific AIM Stratpage

CHIEF EXPLOITATION OFFICER vs CHIEF EXPLORATION OFFICER:

Another approach to crafting an AIM Stratpage that clarifies your leadership intention is to leverage the CEOs ambidextrous roles (developed by James March and Alex Osterwalder):

1. The "Chief Exploitation Officer," optimises the current business model.

2. The "Chief Exploration Officer" pioneers new business models.

Conclusion: Your AIM Stratpage should be more than just a management tool. It should also serve as a leadership tool. You should use it as communication and engagement tool that clarifies your intentions and guides your team and stakeholders toward a desired future.

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AIM STRATPAGE: Summarise all your strategic objectives into a single page

Let’s look at a real example to make this tool more tangible: an IT company based in Johannesburg, South Africa

• It effectively summarises the company's strategic objectives.

• It includes 15 to 25 objectives — a best practice for clarity.

• It states clear objectives (not initiatives — a very common mistake is to mix objectives with initiatives).

• It differentiates strategic inputs versus strategic outcomes.

Obviously, every AIM Stratpage is unique to the organisation and to the strategy at that time. But it applies to every organisation, from big corporation or small startups, to profit driven companies or to public entities.

TIME TO PLAY

You will find below the AIM Stratpage template, so you can play with it and implement it right now

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You’re making substantial progress! In this Strategy Execution Training, you have almost finalised the first step: AIM. Before moving to Step 2: ACT, and Step 3: TRACK, let’s summarise the key learning points from the AIM phase.

The AIM step allows you to gain absolute clarity about the handful of strategic objectives you're willing to achieve during this transformational journey. It’s all about focus and direction—defining your finish line, understanding what truly matters, and setting the stage for your strategic success.

AIM Stratpage Benefits:

You’ve built the most important strategy execution tool: your AIM Stratpage. This is the cornerstone of a robust strategy process:

1. It helps the team to narrow down to the essence of strategy—what really matters: a few strategic goals. It provides clarity and focus on the objectives that will drive the most impact.

2. It allows you to say NO. The other side of the same coin is that you have a tool that helps you to choose what not to do, to discard many good but not great ideas.

3. It forces consensus. It is hard, if not impossible, to get a consensus on a 500-page strategic plan. But it is possible—and important—on one page.

4. It is a formidable tool to select your portfolio of strategic initiatives, helping you choose the actions that will move the needle and help you achieve your goals.

5. It makes the elaboration of your strategy tracker much easier.

6. It is the best tool for clear and simple strategic alignment. It aligns everyone in the organisation, from top leadership team to the front-line teams.

7. It is much more than a management tool—it's a strategy communication tool that you should use to explain the strategy, to create buy-in and commitment around the strategy from your team, partners, shareholders and stakeholders.

AIM Stratpage Pitfalls:

1. Too operational: Executives often try to fit everything into this one-page document. I know it's tempting, but you must avoid at all costs “polluting” your AIM Stratpage with operational matters (however important or urgent they may be!). Highlight the critical aspects of your company that you want to transform.

2. Too many objectives: Avoid putting too many objectives in your AIM Stratpage. 15 to 25 objectives is a best-practice range to keep in mind. Fewer than that, and you’re too vague. More than that, and you’re losing focus and clarity. Focus on the essential ones only.

3. Too complex: Sophisticated objectives may impress your audience, but avoid complex or unclear objectives. Your 6-year-old daughter should be able to understand your set of objectives perfectly well.

4. Mixing objectives with initiatives: By clearly picking your objectives, you set the tone and the direction of your initiatives. It is absolutely crucial not to mix objectives with actions.

5. Mixing objectives with measures: Your visionary side wants you to pick the measure before you’ve clearly identified the objective. Not yet!

6. Mixing inputs with outcomes: The cause-and-effect articulation is very important: identify the outcomes you want to achieve, then the few levers, and then perhaps some critical enablers to unlock these levers. This articulation will 1. Force you to test the coherence of your strategy, 2. Help you identify any gaps in your plan and 3. Allow for proactive management down the road.
   

   
   

Now you’re equipped to build a state-of-the-art AIM Stratpage

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“Hope is not a strategy” - Vince Lombardi

“If you want something you don’t currently have, you need to do something you’re not currently doing” - Lou Cassara

>>> We need to DO something if we want to achieve these ambitious objectives.

BUILD YOUR STRATEGIC IMPACT MATRIX

• Start by listing all your current or planned actions, projects, campaigns, and programs.

• Then, plot these on a matrix:

  • The X-Axis is for their Strategic Impact. Evaluate how each action will move the needle toward achieving your strategic objectives.

  • The Y-Axis shows the Organisational Complexity. Assess the resources needed, such as financial cost, team size, and collaboration across different Departments.

The key benefit of this matrix is that it helps you distinguish between operational and strategic actions. As Henry David Thoreau wisely said, “It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”

Focus on strategic actions—the right side of the matrix. Those are your priority! Actions on the left side may be important but are more operational. Postpone, delegate, or drop these until you’ve tackled the strategic ones.

You can break down your initiatives into four categories:

1. First the No Way initiatives: Complex with low strategic impact.

2. Then the Operational Initiatives: Low complexity but also low impact.

3. Third the No Brainers Initiatives: Easy to implement with high strategic impact (spoiler: they are rarely found).

4. Fourth the Strategic Initiatives: Perhaps harder to implement, but with high strategic impact! These often represent 20% of your actions that will yield 80% of the results, according to the Pareto Principle. So prioritise these initiatives to transform your organisation and achieve your strategic goals.

FROM AIM STRATPAGE TO ACT STRATPAGE

The outcome of our selection process is straightforward: each input objective of your AIM Stratpage should be backed by specific strategic initiatives (shown as yellow boxes).

NOTE: when your strategy is well-articulated, achieving these input objectives will directly contribute to your strategic outcomes. This alignment works through the cause-and-effect mechanism we discussed earlier.

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It’s not enough to select your initiatives. You need to equip them with sufficient resources so they can be successfully implemented.

DEFINE YOUR INITIATIVES

Grab your AIM Stratpage. By now, you should have selected a portfolio of strategic initiatives for each strategic objective. The next step is to define them clearly. Keep it concise—no lengthy reports needed. Focus on these four elements:

1. First, the Project Scope: Briefly describe the project’s scope and the objectives it will impact.

2. Second, the Project Work Plan: Create a high-level Gantt chart with clear start and end dates. Avoid ongoing projects. And outline key expected milestones and deliverables.

3. Third, the Project Team: Identify the main team members involved, especially from management. If you can, estimate the time commitment required from each.

4. And finally the Project Budget: Estimate the required budget for strategic expenditure.

By defining your initiatives clearly, you’ll be able to quantify the human and financial efforts required for successful implementation. With a solid understanding of the expected costs, you can assess whether you can afford them.

Think of your initiatives as cars. Ferraris are amazing. They would help you to reach your destination faster, but they are pricey. Instead you might only be able to afford Volkswagens, or Toyotas. Resource limitations will influence the ambition and pace of your strategy execution. You will most often face either a team barrier (not enough people) or a financial barrier (not enough money). Your Budget for Strategic Initiatives (also called “Strategic Expenditures”, or “Stratex”) competes directly with your Opex and Capex.

PRIORITISE YOUR INITIATIVES

1. Set Aside Lower impact Initiatives: Focus on high strategic impact projects only, as we previously saw

2. Park the Out-of-Reach Initiatives: Discard the Ferrari actions that are beyond your budget.

3. Kick-off first your Highest Impact Actions: Start with the projects that will most significantly impact your strategic outcomes. Allocate sufficient resources for them, and launch them now!

4. The remaining key initiatives can wait a bit, a year, or two perhaps

ACT STRATPAGE

The result of selecting and prioritising your initiatives is your ACT STRATPAGE !

This is a one-page, clear and concise strategic transformation roadmap that summarises all your key strategic initiatives:

TIME TO PLAY

You will find below the ACT Stratpage template, so you can play with it and implement it right now:

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“Ideas are easy. Execution is everything” - John Doerr

Executing a portfolio of strategic initiatives is critical for an organisation’s success… but most are failing at it. We’re here to change that. Let's ensure you don’t end up among the 89% of poor executors (according to a study from The Economist). And we’ll do it in five simple steps.

Step 1: Move from the world of ideas to the world of actions

As the philosopher Alain said, “The secret of action... is to get started.”

Step 2: Move from Doer to Fast Doer

Move from fast strategic thinking to "good" or "slow" strategic thinking. As Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Following this philosophy, I believe in dedicating quality time to designing a solid, precise strategy, rather than chasing new buzzwords every week. BUT once your strategy is well-defined, there are no more excuses and no more time to waste: your focus, efforts, energy, and obsession should now be on executing your strategic initiatives relentlessly: very hard, very much, very fast!

Step 3: Move from “operational doer” to “strategic doer”

Remember Henry David Thoreau’s words: “It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” The risk is that, consciously or not, you might slip back into focusing on initiatives that compete for your attention but are not truly strategic:

• These urgent matters that aren't strategic

• These important projects that aren't strategic

• These day-to-day activities that aren't strategic neither

Start your day by focusing first on implementing your strategic initiatives—before checking emails, jumping into endless meetings, or doing anything else. Why? Because there’s nothing more important.

Step 4: Move from Strategy Sprint to Strategy Marathon

Richard M. Kovacevich puts it well: “A vision and strategy aren’t enough. The long-term key to success is execution. Each day. Every day.” Perseverance is key. Now, show us your strategic stamina!

Step 5: Move from Rigid Execution to Agile Execution

As the philosopher Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan … until they get punched in the mouth.” In the heat of the battle, flexibility and agility are key. You need to be ready to make decisions and adjust your execution program. Don’t change the strategic direction or objectives, but be prepared to tweak an initiative, start a new one, or stop those that aren’t delivering the expected strategic impact.

Let’s also recognise the limits of any strategic exercise. None of us have a crystal ball to predict the future. During execution, you must balance a long-term plan with short-term opportunities. As Rosabeth Moss Kanter taught us, “The art of strategy is knowing when to take the long view and when to be opportunistic.”

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Well done! You’re making marginal improvements, step by step.

You’ve built another key component of your Strategy Execution Framework. After identifying your Strategic Objectives and summarising them into a single page—your AIM Stratpage—you’ve now equipped, prioritised, and consolidated your portfolio of transformational initiatives into another concise summary: you now have an actionable strategic roadmap: your ACT Stratpage!

Not only do you know where to go (your objectives), but you also know how to get there (your actions).

KEY LEARNINGS

1. “Hope is not a strategy”: To achieve the ambitious strategic objectives you’ve set, you need to take action. We’ve identified a set of strategic projects to focus on.

2. "Less is more”: Prioritize your initiatives. Focus on the 20% that will drive 80% of the impact. “You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.”

3. To implement great initiatives, you need great resources: Resource limitations will dictate the ambition and pace of your execution. Allocate the right team and budget to your initiatives to avoid failure.

4. Once you’ve selected and prioritised your initiatives, don’t waste time—implement them. “The secret of action is to get started” - Alain.

5. This is a marathon, not a sprint: Demonstrate your strategic stamina and create a culture of long-lasting execution.

Let’s now move to the next phase: TRACK your strategic efforts and results. We’ll help you get the best possible sport watch to monitor your progress!

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Michael Lewis highlights that “People in both (baseball) fields operate with beliefs and biases. To the extent you can eliminate both and replace them with data, you gain a clear advantage.” This is equally true in the business world! Business leaders often operate with numerous beliefs and biases. Like Michael Lewis, let’s replace these biases with strategic progress data to gain a clear strategic advantage.

Peter Drucker famously said, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” So, let’s measure strategy.

There are basically two different elements to measures:

1. First, you need to be sure that you are doing what you were supposed to do. We will call that the Strategic Actions Tracker. Here you want to be sure that you’re a Strategic Doer, that you do implement your strategic initiatives.

2. Then, you need to be sure that you are achieving your strategic objectives. We will call that the Strategic Achievements Tracker. This tracker is not about doing, but achieving your strategic goals.

Both trackers are essential for measuring strategic progress.

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STRATEGIC ACTIONS TRACKER

You have selected a set of strategic initiatives. You need to ensure they are being executed as planned. Ask yourself if "you are we doing what you said you would be doing, within the agreed budget, quality, and time?” This incorporates the three elements of the project management triangle:

1. The Time Constraint: The amount of time available to complete the project.

2. The Cost Constraint: The budgeted amount available for the project.

3. The Scope Constraint: What must be done to achieve the project’s end result.

Your Strategic Actions Tracker should be:

• Short: The Actions Tracker should cover all your active strategic initiatives on one page—no more.

• Frequent: Aim to update this tracker monthly, though you might consider a higher frequency depending on your needs.

• Decision focused: The tracker should help you make better and faster decisions. We’ll delve into this aspect later.

TIME TO PLAY

You will find below the Strategic Actions Tracker template, so you can play with it and implement it right now:

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So, you’ve been diligently tracking the progress of your strategic actions—well done. You’re a great strategic doer. But that’s not enough! Tracking your activities—whether on time, on budget, and with the required quality—doesn't guarantee that you'll achieve your strategic targets. Ultimately, you need to check if your hard work is driving the expected outcomes.

If you follow the exact plan and don’t see the results, you need to track both your actions and your achievements. In strategy, we call this the Strategic Achievements Tracker.

STRATEGIC ACHIEVEMENTS TRACKER

Rule #1: Measure Strategy

It sounds obvious, but it's often overlooked. You must avoid measuring operational matters. You should also set aside important, but non-strategic matters. Focus solely on strategic measures. Are we steering the ship in the right direction? In other words, are we achieving our strategic objectives?

Rule #2: Measure Less

“One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions” highlighted Grace Hopper. Make this your guiding principle. Choose 1 measure per objective. This ensures clarity for you and your team, helping to focus on what truly matters.

Rule #3: Measure Facts

While some subjectivity is inevitable, aim to minimise it as much as possible when tracking your strategic achievements. Intangibles like culture, knowledge, and behaviours are harder to measure objectively. However, when subjective feedback is valuable (from clients, stakeholders, or employees), apply the rule of large numbers: instead of relying on a 3 client opinions, gather data from 300 or even 3,000 sources to ensure accuracy and relevance.

Following these three simple rules, you should be able to build a solid and straightforward Strategic Achievements Tracker. For each objective on your AIM Stratpage, select one strategic measure. For each measure, establish a baseline and set a stretch target that reflects the transformational scope of your strategy. And that’s it! You now have a proper Strategic Achievements Tracker. Start tracking your strategic achievements monthly or quarterly to stay on top of your progress.

TIME TO PLAY

You will find below the Strategic Achievements Tracker template, so you can play with it and implement it right now: 

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STRATEGY EXECUTION COCKPIT

How should your Strategy Execution Cockpit look like?

Our view is that it should be short and crisp, no longer than 3 pages.

1. AIM Stratpage: This page outlines your strategic goals, ensuring clarity on what you aim to achieve.

2. Strategic Actions Tracker: This page provides a one-page overview of your initiatives' progress. It shows whether you’re executing as planned.

3. Strategic Achievements Tracker: This page highlights your strategic achievements, helping you assess if your efforts are achieving the desired results and if you're effectively steering your organisation.

By keeping it concise and focused, you ensure that your cockpit provides a clear, actionable view of your strategy execution.

DECISION MAKING PROCESS

Now, let’s revisit the decision-making process during the Summit. You will face four possible decisions (called the CSCS):

1. CONTINUE | Continue as Planned: Everything is proceeding as expected, so you continue with the current plan.

2. START | Or Initiate New Actions: If progress is slower than anticipated, you might need to start new actions to accelerate execution.

3. CHANGE | Or Revise the Portfolio: You may need to adjust the existing portfolio of initiatives to achieve greater or faster impact. As someone wisely said, “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, not the goal.” The goals remain the same, but you should adapt your plan and actions if they are not effectively reaching your strategic targets.

4. STOP | Or finally, Discontinue Initiatives: This can be the most challenging decision, as it involves acknowledging that certain initiatives were not the right choice or failed in implementation. However, this is a key indicator of strategic maturity. As Lin Yutang said, "Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials."

READ MORE:

WE recommend the book How Big Things Get Done, by Bent Flyvbjerg, which explores the facts and psychology behind strategic initiative failures.

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Let’s recap the key learning points for Tracking your Strategic Performance effectively:

1. Track Both Efforts and Results: You’ve learned the importance of tracking both your efforts using a Strategic Actions Tracker and your results using a Strategic Achievements Tracker. It's not enough to just track activities; you also need to measure the outcomes to ensure your strategy is moving in the right direction.

2. Separate Strategic tracking and Operational tracking: Avoid mixing strategic data with “operational,” “urgent,” or “important” data. If needed, create a separate operational scorecard, but do not blend it with your strategic scorecard. Mixing these two will only confuse people as they serve different goals and require different levels of focus.

3. Keep It Simple: You’ve seen that you should avoid creating unnecessary bureaucracy and paperwork. Forget overly complex reports. Keep your trackers short and crisp. This ensures clarity and helps everyone stay focused on what truly matters.

4. Track to Drive Value, Not for the Sake of Tracking: Remember, tracking is not about checking boxes; it is a time-consuming and significant organisational effort. You must ensure that it adds value by helping you and your executive team make better decisions related to your strategy execution process. Be decision-obsessed: every Strategic Acceleration Summit should conclude with clear decisions and commitments: Continue, Start, Change, or Stop.

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Strategic Tracking Additional Considerations:

1. Stay Focused on Execution, Not Redefinition: It's tempting to keep redesigning your strategy or adding new, trendy strategic objectives. However, this is not a strategy definition exercise. Your priority by now should be implementing the strategy you already have.

2. Don’t Fear the Red Flags: Remember the saying "There is something worse than bad news: bad news late!" This process is about surfacing issues with strategic progress, not hiding them. Pretending everything is going well when it's not helps no one. Set aside biases and fears of being in the spotlight, and tackle the challenges you're facing, collectively as a team.

KEY IDEAS IN THIS SECTION

You went through the three key steps to build a superb Strategy Execution Framework:

1. You have distilled your Strategic Plan into a concise and structured set of Strategic Objectives, your AIM Stratpage, mastering the art of AIMING for essential goals, and letting go of everything else that doesn’t get you there.

2. You have pinpointed those game-changing projects that will help you fast-track your execution pace. You have learnt to build your ACT Stratpage with laser-focused precision. Step by step, you’re moving toward your strategic targets.

3. You have learnt how to continuously TRACK your strategic journey, but without the burden of endless reports or mountains of data. Instead, you’ve created a short, crisp tracker that keeps everyone aligned and ready to make better, faster decisions about your strategy execution.

THE STRATEGY EXECUTION COCKPIT

It's time to bring everyone to the Strategy Execution Cockpit:

• It's time for you to track the progress of your strategy and accelerate your execution pace and impact.

• It’s time for you to make corrective decisions along your transformational journey.

• It’s time for you to make ruthless execution choices and decisive moves.
  

THE STRATEGY EXECUTION DASHBOARD

To provide clarity and drive impact, your Strategy Execution dashboard should be no more than four pages:

1. The first page of your cockpit dashboard is the AIM Stratpage, which crystallises all the strategic objectives you're chasing. This is the cornerstone of your entire execution model. Without it, you'd be like a headless chicken—running around without strategic direction. It’s concise, with no more than 25 objectives, but don’t underestimate the time and effort necessary to craft yours. Build a great one; it will go a long way.

2. The second page of your cockpit dashboard is the ACT Stratpage, which offers a clear strategic roadmap. It helps you select, prioritise, and rapidly implement your portfolio of transformational initiatives.

3. The third page of your cockpit dashboard is your Strategic Actions Tracker. This page provides feedback along the journey, ensuring that your team is doing what they committed to do.

4. The fourth page of your cockpit dashboard is your Strategic Achievements Tracker. This page allows you to track if you’re really moving the needle, not just busy. It will track the business, customer or social impacts of your strategy.

With these four pages, you have a short yet robust Strategy Execution Framework!

Now, it's time to move from theory to practice: so craft your Execution Framework and share it with me!

KEY IDEAS IN THIS SECTION

STRATEGY EMPOWERMENT CATALYST

"Leadership is about empowering others to achieve things they did not think possible" according to Simon Sinek. If you relate that to strategy, the reality is that while you can have the best strategic plan (thanks to the Strategy Blueprint Training), and the best execution framework (thanks to this training!), you will most probably also need a very solid strategy empowerment model to push people beyond their comfort zones so they can achieve things they did not think possible, for themselves and for their organisation.

Your role in strategy leadership is therefore not only about defining the strategy and framing its execution, but also about empowering your team! We need to stop believing that strategy is the job of the CEO or a few smart Executives. The reality is that strategy is everyone's job. Every single employee, stakeholder, or partner in your organisation will have a role, a contribution to play in this deep transformation, along this strategic journey.

We encourage you to build a great strategic empowerment canvas by attending our specific training program. This exceptional bootcamp has been designed to open the hood of the strategy engine and tackle this challenge. It will enable all stakeholders to understand the transformation ahead, to work together towards the same strategic goals, and to embrace change. It will assist you with:

• COORDINATION: Driving strategic performance and coordinated efforts

• COMMUNICATION: Ensuring stakeholder full buy-in for the strategy

• CHANGE: Proactively managing your strategic change process

JOIN THE CLUB

"Only 8% of leaders are good at both strategy definition and strategy execution” as reported in a HBR article. We trust this training has helped you in avoiding this strategy leadership trap and propelled you towards joining the ranks of top-performing leaders.

To further support your journey and ensure you keep pace with the latest strategy trends and ideas, we've launched a complimentary monthly newsletter known as “the 8% Club”. Subscribers gain access to invaluable insights from proven tools, academic research, thought-provoking articles, and more. It’s both free and priceless at the same time.

Register now by clicking on the link below or by visiting our website:

StrategyReignited . com / newsletter

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THANK YOU !

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