The Common Assumption That Will Sink Your Strategic Initiative
If Your Strategy Lacks This Plan, Your Team Will Fall Short of Execution Goals
The due diligence many companies perform before rolling out a strategic initiative is impressive. They pour over industry trend reports, analyze reams of customer data, and perform extensive financial analyses to make sure it will produce a great ROI.
But companies often forget about one factor—and it comes back to bite them when the initiative is rolled out: their ability to successfully execute the strategy.
Now, execution may seem like an obvious issue to address. Yet too many successful companies assume they already have the necessary infrastructure to execute any new initiative. For instance, if they’re rolling out a new product, they may assume a few tweaks to their current process is all it will take to get the product into their customers’ hands.
That assumption is dangerous. You may have the most intelligent people coming up with the brightest plans to sell a ground-breaking product, but if you can’t execute, the entire initiative collapses. That’s why every strategy needs a plan for execution that clearly articulates how each and every employee can effectively support an initiative.
Presuming an initiative’s success is often based on wishful thinking, not hard facts.
Profitable businesses have talented people, so a shift shouldn’t be tough, right?
From the C-suite’s point of view, for example, a speech at a sales conference may be enough to fire up employees and get everyone on board. But if employees don’t fully understand what the new strategy means for them and how they can support it, they won’t be able to give it the attention it needs to succeed.
That’s because when people are uncertain, they revert to what they know. Take the example of a new product rollout initiative I used earlier. A salesperson who doesn’t understand a new product isn’t going to have much success selling it. So, the new product will likely be put on the back burner while the salesperson works to keep their numbers up by selling the products they know.
Avoiding the unknown is a common problem, and my team at MindStrength sees it all the time. One of our clients Window-ology—a Costco channel partner in the window coverings industry—experienced this exact issue. They made about 300 errors each year in their order processing system, but the problem was simple: their salespeople weren’t comfortable selling the entire line of products. In some cases, the wrong type of product was being sold; in others, the order itself wasn’t being properly processed internally. And the cumulative effect of those errors was a significant drag on their bottom line.
Unfortunately, a strategic initiative that doesn’t gain traction becomes a pair of concrete boots for a company trying to keep its head above water. For a new product initiative, the products the sales team is used to selling have become commoditized, so the profit margin is sinking. The company has to expand, but without a plan to execute, they flounder. So their initiative ROI tanks.
Fortunately, there’s a solution—it just requires a different focus.
If you make an execution plan alongside your strategy, your team can execute effectively.
Strategic execution is more than a mindset. It’s a tangible, deliberate process with specific goals that requires organizational alignment and, critically, traction metrics. It requires an organization to give equal importance to the development of a strategy and the execution of that strategy from top to bottom.
Unfortunately, too many companies lack insight into whether or not their employees have the resources they need to follow this process and successfully execute a new initiative. But instead of hoping for the best, you can ensure employees have the tools and depth of understanding to support the initiative.
In Window-ology’s case, they leveraged their MindStrength Initiative Platform to get all of their team members equipped with the right knowledge and tools to effectively sell every product. By eliminating misunderstandings about the product line and the sales process, they reduced the employee error rate by 90%, and increased the average ticket price by 15%. The error rate decrease was a great sign—returns and re-installations took a large chunk out of the profit margin. But the increase in the average ticket price was a strong indicator that employees also felt comfortable selling the full line of products. Once everyone had what they needed to execute, they made sales at higher-margin products.
Tangible results show the power of allocating the proper time and energy to your execution plan. When your employees are engaged with an initiative and have the tool to execute, you don’t have to cross your fingers and hope the strategy comes to fruition in a year. You’ll see it happening all the time.
Many people believe execution boils down to motivation or passion, but if it’s done right, execution isn’t emotional. It doesn’t happen because employees hear a great speech or see the right slideshow. Execution happens because everyone understands their role with the new initiative and has the tools they need to accomplish their part.
Akhil Kohli is the CEO and founder of MindStrength, the preeminent initiative execution platform for Fortune 500 and mid-size companies. MindStrength's Initiative Platform enables companies to execute against strategic initiatives at scale and with accountability at all levels of the organization.