- Introduction
- Execution Is a Key to Success
- Additional Challenges and Obstacles to Successful Execution
- The Results: Obstacles to Successful Strategy Execution
- The Execution Challenge
- Summary
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Additional Challenges and Obstacles to Successful Execution
The issues previously noted are serious, potentially impeding execution. Yet there are still other challenges and obstacles to the successful implementation of strategy. These need to be identified and confronted if execution is to succeed.
To find out what problems managers routinely encounter in the execution of strategy, I developed two research projects to provide some answers. My goal was to learn about execution from those most qualified to give me the scoop—managers actually dealing with strategy execution. I could have relied solely on my own consulting experiences. I felt, however, that a more widespread approach—surveys directed toward many practicing managers—would yield additional positive results and useful insights into execution issues.
Wharton-Gartner Survey and Executive Education Data Collection
The first survey was a joint project involving the Gartner Group, Inc., a well-known research organization, and me, a Wharton professor. The purpose of the research, from the Gartner introduction, was as follows:
“To gain a clear understanding of challenges faced by managers as they make decisions and take actions to execute their company’s strategy to gain competitive advantage.”
The research instrument was a short online survey sent to 1,000 individuals on the Gartner E-Panel database. The targeted sample comprised managers who reported that they were involved in strategy formulation and execution. Complete usable responses were received from a sample of 243 individuals, a return rate that is more than sufficient for this type of research. In addition, the survey collected responses to open-ended questions to provide additional data, including explanations of items covered in the survey instrument. A copy of the overall Wharton-Gartner survey can be found in the appendix of this book.
There were 12 items on the survey dealing with obstacles to the strategy-execution process. They focused on conditions that affect execution and were originally developed in conjunction with a long-running Wharton Executive Development Program on strategy implementation.
Using the 12 items to gather opinions over a large number of executive education programs provided me with responses from a sample of 200 managers. They provided a ranking of the items’ impact on strategy execution. Open-ended responses to questions about execution issues, problems, and opportunities were also collected over time, providing additional valuable data. Coupled with the data collected in the Wharton-Gartner Survey using the same 12 items, I had complete responses from 443 managers involved in strategy execution who told me about their execution problems and their solutions to them.
In subsequent Wharton Executive Development Programs and consulting engagements after this data collection and publication of Making Strategy Work in 2005, I was able to gain additional insight into execution problems and difficulties. I held formal and informal discussions during the executive programs and while working with companies in the period from 2005 to the present, asking managers what the data were actually saying or implying. I asked managers why, in their opinion, people responded the way they did. “What are the survey data telling us about execution problems or issues?” was the predominant question.
These discussions forced managers to read between the lines and interpret the formal data. They also enabled me to probe into what could be done to overcome the obstacles and achieve successful execution outcomes. Insights were collected, then, not only on the sources of execution problems but their solutions as well.
The surveys and follow-up discussions provided data right from “the horse’s mouth.” These were not idiosyncratic data, the opinions or observations of a few managers or CEOs who, against all odds, “did it their way.” The number of managers providing answers, coupled with an emphasis on real problems and solutions, added a strong sense of relevance to the opinions gathered about strategy execution.
What insights did these additional discussions, interviews, and analyses reveal? What did managers say about execution problems and how do their opinions affect the topics and issues that this revised book addresses to further the cause of more successful strategy execution programs?