Have You Got A To-Stop List?

Implementation Tip – No 1

As part of the blog we will intermittently post valuable tips that we have learned from clients or developed in Bridges. These are powerful actions that have made a difference in an organization’s implementation journey.

To-Stop List

Everyone has a to-do list and at the end of the strategy planning but how many leaders take the time to identify the behaviors and actions that are obsolete with the launch of the new strategy?

When we ask the leadership team to identify the behaviors and actions that should be stopped, typically their list is twice as long as the to-do list.

Changing strategy means changing what you are asking your staff members to do every day and leaders have a responsibility to clarify what is no longer required just as much as to clarify what is required. The benefit of telling them what is no longer obligatory is significant as many staff members are confused during the launch of a new strategy. They are not sure about what is expected from them and what is not) and what they need to do (and what they don’t). By answering these questions leaders go a long way to demystify the confusion and optimize staff member’s time. This also allows staff members to grasp the new strategy faster which in turn produces faster traction, quicker early successes and quicker success stories that leaders can shout out.

On average 33 per cent of staff member’s work in a large organization is non-value adding. The to-stop list ensures staff members are not wasting time taking actions that are no longer needed, doing rework or doing work that is no longer of value, for example, gathering data for a report that is obsolete or promoting a product that is no longer part of the strategy. The to-stop list identifies, for example, the products that should no longer be sold, or the services that should no longer be offered, or the markets that should no longer be targeted. One bank in the Middle East was developing a new credit card targeted at its mass customers. It was only after the planning was completed and the marketing was being developed that it was realized that the card was for a market that the bank was no longer targeting. The card project was immediately stopped, but the time staff members had spent on the project that was not in sync with the new strategy that the leaders had spent 18 months developing, was of course lost forever along with the investment.

Take the time when launching a new strategy to tell your staff members what to stop doing.

Making Sure Your Strategy Fails - Eight Global Worst Practices of Strategy Implementation

It is time to reveal the secrets of failed implementation. With more books being published in the last 24 months than there had been to date on strategy implementation (including my own, Beyond Strategy – The Leaders Role in Successful Implementation, by John Wiley this week) it is no longer a secret what nine out of ten companies do to make sure that their corporate strategy fails. In sharing the eight global “worst practices” I appeal to all strategy saboteurs around the world.

Eight Global Worst Practices of Strategy Implementation

1. Underestimate the implementation challenge

Strategy is the key responsibility of leaders and implementation is the key responsibility of staff members. After spending 18 months developing the strategy you have earned that long overdue break. You have delivered on your key responsibility of identifying the company’s future and how to get there. Now it is up to the staff members to deliver on their responsibilities. Tell them what needs to be done and they will deliver.

2. Don’t think through the impact on each vertical business line

When developing strategy it is essential that leaders adopt a helicopter view and look horizontally across the businesses and even more importantly consider how the strategic objectives impact each other. After considering this, each leader can then be expected to return to their office and drill down the strategy into their division and departments. Corporate wide strategies, goals and measures will be translated at departmental level and everyone will have a clear sense of responsibility with regards to the new strategy and the actions they need to take to make it come alive.

3. Use change management methodology

For the last 40 years we have used been using change management methodologies as a sure fire way to execute strategy and there is no reason to change our current approach.

4. Don’t use a strategy implementation framework

When leaders return to their office after the board has signed off on the new strategy they have a strong understanding of what they need to not only do next but also over the long-term to deliver on the promises they have made. They will immediately set about ensuring measures are changed to track the new strategy and eliminate the old ones. They will initiate process redesign groups, communicate the strategy and align the implementation with the culture. They will also support the people who support the strategy, change reward and recognition to align it with the desired behaviors and actions of the new strategy and every two week review the implementation to make sure it is on course. All of this is second nature to a leader and there is no need to waste money adopting an implementation framework or hiring a consultant.

5. Do not reinforce staff members for taking specific actions

It is a given that staff members will adopt the new desired behaviors and actions of the new strategy as this is their responsibility. They understand that it is the collective action of every member that takes the company forward (or backward). They know that everyone is responsible for strategy.

6. Allow communications to fizzle out after the initial launch

It is essential to launch the strategy and the most popular methods include town hall meetings, newsletters and email campaigns. After the initial launch the staff members will have a clear understanding about why the company requires a new strategy, the actions they need to take and will be motivated to take them. Even more, the understanding and motivation will last for the full period of time it takes to implement the strategy and will not falter or rescind.

7. Don’t worry about the work that is no longer adding value

Staff members are amazingly intuitive and self starters. As the strategy is rolled out they will constantly be able to step back and reflect on what needs to be done differently. Even more impressive is that they will overcome the juxtaposition of the work that needs to be done and that, that is no longer adding value.

8. Implementation of strategy is a serious subject, not fun

When implementing strategy we are talking about the future of the company and this is not a time for light hearted comments, discussions or actions. Everyone in the company understands the importance and their responsibility. This is not a time for being frivolous.

Strategy fails 9 out of 10 times!
We Know

In the last 12 months there has been a sudden explosion of books, articles and, yes, blogs stating that 9 out of 10 strategies fail to be implemented successfully.



We know.

It’s not new information. It’s ten years since Fortune magazine published the oft-quoted cover story, “Why CEOs Fail,” that explained, “Organizations fail to successfully implement strategy not because of bad strategy but because of bad execution.”



Seven years ago, Ram Charan followed up the article by teaming up with Larry Bossidy to write Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. The book introduced the field of implementation to business leader and why execution was important.



Five years ago, I wrote Bricks to Bridges: Make Your Strategy Come Alive, and published our research that, yep you guessed, 9 out of 10 times strategy fails. I am not sure why the sudden explosion (your comments are welcome) but leaders get it. They now know that they can’t discuss strategy without discussing implementation.



It has not been a hard sell to convince a leader that more often than not implementation fails and that they need to do something different. Too many leaders on too many occasions have been involved in too many failures. Sub consciously they knew there was a problem. The literature over the last 10 years has supplied the numerical and logical argument to support the emotional one. It is time to move on.



We are not attempting to convince everyone that the world is round, or that heavier object do not fall to the ground faster than lighter objects or that E=MC2. Around the world, leaders understand the arguments, have recognized the opportunity and understand that a different approach is needed. Leaders are now asking, “What do we do different?”



We have peaked leaders curiosity. We have provided a solid argument and we have built the platform to move forward. We must now shift the message from what’s wrong to how to resolve the problem. Leaders want to know how they can reverse the equation.



Leaders must change their attitude, approach and actions. To do this we must provide them a framework to ensure they are taking the right action (strategy implementation is the collective individual actions taken every day by staff members who will deliver the strategy for tomorrow). The framework explains to leaders specifically what they need to do differently. Check out strategy implementation framework for an example of a framework you can use.
Many of the actions leaders need to take to successfully implement the strategy are contrary to current belief, such as, most people do not resist implementation when it is communicated correctly and strategy implementation must be reviewed not every quarter but every two weeks.



To the many things leaders must do different there is one overriding transformation they must make. Most people agree that leaders are responsible for the future of the company and thus the strategy. Why then do many leaders spend more time talking about operations than strategy? If you are looking to be successful in strategy implementation and somewhere to start, start by changing the daily dialogues among leaders. Ensure you are spending more time talking about strategy and its implementation than operational issues.

The Leaders Perspective to Implementing Strategy –People

This is blog examins the role leaders must play to successfully implement strategy. We have learned from various researches over the last eight years that as many as 90 per cent of strategies fail to deliver. Leaders must be as responsible for overseeing the execution of the strategy as they are for crafting the strategy. Research from Bridges Business Consultancy Int, a specialist in strategy implementation, identified eight areas successful companies focus when implementing their strategy – People, Biz Case, Communicate, Measure, Culture, Process, Reinforce and Review. In this series of articles we will examine the leader’s role in each of these areas.
People

Leaders are responsible for crafting strategy and overseeing its implementation but it is the staff members who must take the right actions and behaviors every day to make the strategy come alive. Too often leaders delegate the implementation and don’t follow through and as a result the implementation fails. Leaders must adopt a different attitude and a different approach towards implementation. If nine out of ten implementations fail then there must be some serious flaws in the current thinking and models. I would like to address what leaders must do different.

1. Leaders must see the staff members as the “Strategy Customer”. When implementing strategy leaders are selling the strategy to their staff members and they are the ones who must buy it (buy-in). This is a paradigm shift for many leaders. In most implementations leaders delegate the responsibility to their staff members without proper support, encouragement and the appropriate tools and techniques. Leaders then sit back and expect the implementation to be effectively carried out!

Leaders must adopt the same mindset for rolling out the strategy to the organization as they would, for example, in launching a new product to customers. When they take the time to show their staff members the respect, staff members take the time to do the same. In other words treat staff members with the same respect you treat customers.

When leaders work with their staff members in implementation, the same way you work with customers launching a product you positively change the way you view your people and as a result your staff members more readily adopt the strategy and resist it less.

2. Despite popular belief, most people do not resist change – when it is communicated correctly. For years we have churned along with the notion that when organizations are making large changes, most people resist. It could be from a fear of losing responsibility or stepping into the unknown or trying new things and, as such, we have crafted strategy implementation and people policies based on wrong assumptions.

Contrary to popular belief, our research in Bridges, over eight years, tells us that when it comes to implementation in an organization, most people do not resist it if the new strategy is presented and communicated correctly. They generally respond in one of three ways – indifference, resistance, or support. 20 per cent is resistance, 60 per cent is indifference and 20 per cent is support.

Implementing strategy is difficult. The odds are stacked against us before you even start. We need to make it as easy as possible for the organization to succeed. The 20 per cent who support the implementation come on board more readily than the others. Many of them recognize the need for change without being told the reasons. They see the benefits and immediately start to take action. They create early successes and provide success stories to share.


Key learning for leaders is that they must support the staff members who support the implementation and that is the top 20 per cent.

3. The launch of a new strategy means that you are asking staff members to do things differently. It is a leader’s responsibility to identify any new skills, knowledge or attitude staff members may need and then to provide specific training.

Leaders are responsible for reviewing the new strategy and identifying gaps that must be filled to ensure they are setting the staff members up for success. This may involve for example, on the job training, workshop training, computer based learning and/or coaching.


Leaders have been failing for too long to execute the strategy they create. The failure rate has gone unchecked for too long and it is time for leaders to change the way they view implementation.

Strategy Execution - An opportunity to leapfrog the competition during the crisis

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Strategy Execution An Opportunity Slide Share

View more OpenOffice presentations from Robin Speculand.

Make Your Strategy Come Alive 2-Hour Presentation

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Make Your Strategy Come Alive 2-Hour Presentation

View more presentations from Robin Speculand.

6 Necessary Mind Shifts for Implementing Strategy

"One of the criticisms we would have of some of our colleagues who have studied strategy (and some consultants who advice on strategy) is assuming that once you design strategy, it gets executed. They don’t look inside the process and realize that it’s much more complicated.”
- Joseph Bowler, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Nine out of ten strategies fail to be successfully implemented.

This is a statistic that is growing in influence as there is a pendulum swing away from the thought that just crafting a strategy is enough and towards that it also has to implemented. You can have the greatest strategy in the world but if you cannot implement it, it is not worth the paper it is written on.

In the last few years, an increasing amount of research has emerged on how to successfully implement strategy. The company I founded, Bridges Business Consultancy Int, a pioneer in the field of strategy implementation, has been conducting research for eight years. From our studies and work with clients globally, we identified flaws in leaders’ thinking and their approach to implementation. That helps explain why nine out of ten times, leaders fail to successfully implement the strategies they create. Success in implementation starts with thinking differently and then doing things differently. After all, if we always do what we have always done, then we will always get what we have always got.

My interviews with leaders who successfully executed their strategies reveal that at some point, they dramatically shifted the way they thought about implementation. A Mind Shift occurred.

In fact, they have helped me identify six Mind Shifts that need to take place for the success of an implementation, contradicting much traditional literature on the subject. I describe these new required Mind Shifts here, noting the old mindset in quotation marks.

Mind Shift #1 – ‘When crafting strategy is complete, the hardest part is over.’ No, implementation is twice as difficult as creating strategy.

For decades, business leaders have quite rightly focused on developing a strategy for change. Business schools teach the importance of strategy and how to create the right one for a company’s needs. A leader’s role is to design that strategy. The consequence, however, is that once leaders have created their strategies, they believe they have completed most of their responsibilities. The hardest part is over. Yet they habitually underestimate the challenge of implementing that strategy. Many delegate this process to others, taking their eyes off what needs to be done to put their strategies in place. After all, they believe, it is more difficult to create a strategy than to implement it.”

This is not true. Research (from Bridges) indicates that implementing strategy is at least twice as hard as creating the right strategy. The fact that nine out of ten implementations fail supports this statement—not because the strategy was wrong, but because the execution was poorly done.

Evidence to support this conclusion continues to grow. Research spanning 16 years at Newcastle University in the U.K. concluded that “business success is governed more by how well strategies are implemented than how good the strategy is to begin with.” A frequently quoted Fortune article from June 1999 stated that companies fail to successfully implement strategy not because of bad strategy but bad execution. Bridges research over the last eight years shows that nine out of ten strategies fail to be implemented successfully.

When I ask leaders in the seminars I run in 35 cities if they would prefer to have a good strategy implemented badly or a bad strategy implemented well, most speak up for a good strategy implemented badly.

If you believe that having the right strategy means you are moving in the right direction or have the foundation from which to build, that is the wrong answer. The correct answer is having a weak strategy implemented well. Why? If an organization is good at execution, then it will have in place the tools, systems, techniques and abilities to realize that the strategy is not working. They can then go back and make the required changes to the strategy.

Consider also that no leadership team intentionally adopts a bad strategy. It is only in its execution that leaders realize that the strategy is weak. By being good at implementation, you will be able to read the signs and make the necessary changes. Remember, it is the implementation of a strategy that delivers revenue, not the crafting.

The time has come in the evolution of strategy to move from just focusing on the crucial question on how you develop a strategy to how you implement it.

Mind Shift #2 – ‘Most people resist change.’ No, most people are open to change when it is communicated in the right ways.

Contrary to popular belief most people do not resist change! This is probably the most controversial of the six Mind Shifts, because for years we have firmly believed that most staff members will resist change. Remember, if our current beliefs are accurate, we would not be failing so frequently. The question of why we mistakenly believe staff members resist change and its implications are critical to successful implementation.

From its research, Bridges discovered that when a new strategy is announced, staff members generally respond in one of four ways: indifference, resistance, disbelief and support. Which ones occur depend on what the change means to each individual.

Consider these research statistics:

· 20 per cent (and only 20 per cent) resist change. And these resisters tend to complain about anything and everything. They badmouth the implementation behind the leader’s back, complaining that the money could be spent better on bonuses instead of a ‘lost cause’ like this. They try to convince others around them that this strategy is just another management fad. Based on these characteristics, we call such people Saboteurs. If their views win out, the whole implementation fails. You can probably identify one or two Saboteurs in your organization!

60 per cent of the staff members are fence–sitters, neither supporting the implementation nor opposing it. They arrive at 9.00 am and depart at 6.00 pm. In between, they simply do their jobs. They don’t volunteer for additional work, but they don’t actively resist change, either. Based on these characteristics, we call them Groupies. Those who are Groupies like the safety they find in numbers.

20 per cent are those who welcome the change, embrace it and willingly support it. They become the early adopters who drive the change. Based on these characteristics, we call them Mavericks.

Those in the last group are not easy to spot because they are hidden among the Saboteurs. Based on their characteristics, we call them Double Agents. They initially resist, but can become Mavericks over time. Double Agents have seen change many times before and impose doubt that the new strategy will succeed. They have also been called to arms too often and have witnessed too many failures. However, Double Agents start out acting like Saboteurs, but once they assess that this implementation is the ‘one in ten’ that will succeed, they get on board, becoming supportive and active Mavericks.

So why is it commonly believed that people resist change?

Because of the four groups, Saboteurs make the most noise. As a result, they create the largest commotion and lead others to the wrong impression that most people resist change. In addition, Groupies keep quiet because they do not want to draw attention to themselves. Mavericks just get on with the work on hand.

If leaders fail to shift their beliefs, they will develop the wrong policies for addressing staff members’ reactions to the new strategy. So as a leader, what should you do? Mostly ignore the Saboteurs and support the people who support you—the Mavericks.

Mind Shift #3 – ‘It’s all about taking actions.’ No, it’s about taking the right actions.

Of course, you need to take action to implement your strategy. And of course, in business, you are always taking action, filling up the amount of time you have with activity. But the difference between success and failure is that successful leaders ask: “Are we taking the right actions?” Sure, staff members are always busy, but are they doing the work today that will deliver the planned strategy, tomorrow?

To answer this question, you have to first identify the right actions to take. When working with clients, I use the Implementation Compass (see Chapter 2) to identify the right actions based on the eight global best practices of successful implementation.

For example, when a large software company was rolling out its global strategy in Asia Pacific, the right action initially was to convince people why change was necessary when the company was doing so well. That’s called the Biz Case. This company rolled out a teaser campaign that ignited interest and curiosity in its new strategy, starting the implementation in the right way.

A Middle East bank created its new strategy, but did not have a common understanding among its leaders. So the strategy planners developed a Strategy Map to translate their new plan into specific objectives. They also developed measures that ensured the leadership team and staff members were all on the same page.

A local government division wanted to improve its back-office operations to support its new strategy. The division leaders required staff members to engage at two levels. First, all staff members were trained on how to map their work and identify improvements within their own scope. Second, key staff members were asked to participate in cross-functional process redesigns using the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control – from Six Sigma) approach. Rolling out the strategy included making sure staff members tune in to both ‘radio stations’”: WII-FM (What Is In For Me) and also WEX-FM (What Is Expected From Me).

Mind Shift #4 – ‘Communication is all about making sure people understand the strategy.’ No, staff members also must know exactly what actions they need to take.

Yes, before staff members can adopt any new strategy, they must first understand it. Absolutely. Successful implementation goes beyond ensuring staff members understand the strategy; they must also know exactly what to do and be motivated to do it.

Much communication about a new strategy focuses on its launch, which is usually marked with electronic presentations, briefings and t-shirts. Shifting the focus from the initial fanfare to staff members embracing the strategy is imperative.

Launch communication also has to spell out what each staff member needs to do differently as a result of the new strategy. The question ‘what actions should I take to participate in the new strategy?’ has to be answered for everyone. And there’s more. Ways to motivate those who implement the strategy (staff members, not leaders) must be introduced. Measures to track the new strategy need to be set up. New behaviors need to be encouraged through reinforcement. Early adopters should be recognized and encouraged so others follow their lead.

When Rolls Royce rolled out its new strategy a few years ago, it used ‘strategy storyboards’ to share the new message across its broad organization. The storyboards translated abstract ideas into concrete actions. They not only explained why the strategy was important but what Rolls Royce staff members were expected to do differently. In addition, 75 managers were trained to conduct the briefing and hold at least 4000 presentations around the world. After this effort, staff members were able to both understand the strategy and know exactly what to do to help implement it.

Realize that strategy can’t be implemented if it can’t be understood, and it can’t be understood if it can’t be broken down into action steps. While strategy is designed at the top of the organization chart, it gets implemented from the bottom up. Effective communication fills the gap and brings the two together.

Mind Shift #5 – ‘What worked yesterday will work tomorrow.’ No, new strategies are needed every two or three years.

Leaders have had a habit of extending knowledge that was true yesterday when planning for tomorrow. You used to be able to rely on a strategy for eight to ten years. But those days are gone, forever.

Today, many organizations (depending on their industry and product) plan strategy for only two or three years. The cycle of change occurs more and more frequently. As a result, you can no longer depend on yesterday’s model for success; you must craft strategy more and more often. That means you need to implement a new strategy more often than ever before. The current economic crisis reinforces this need.

On the Standard & Poor’s list in 1985, 35 per cent of the companies were considered high risk (that is, their probability of achieving long-term, stable earnings growth was low). In the 2006 list, that figure had risen to 73 per cent. As another indicator, from 1973 to 1983, 35 per cent of those companies listed in the Fortune 1000 were new. From 1983 to 1993, 45 per cent of the Fortune 1000 companies were new, and from 1993 to 2003, 60 per cent of them were new. Maybe Fortune Magazine predicted company performance best when it forecast “continued chaos with a chance of disaster. The challenge is getting comfortable with it. ”

One company comfortable with constant change is Google, which provides various Internet services. The company has built a culture that not only allows its change-friendly people to adapt easily, but it has also become the number one company people want to work for in the United States. Google receives over 3000 job applications a day.

“Googleplex” headquarters today is crammed with conference rooms, hallway buzz sessions, sandy volleyball courts, youngsters whizzing around on motorized scooters, and an ‘anything goes’ spirit. In addition—

• The 17 legendary cafes on Google’s main campus offers 20 cuisines and fantastic (and free) food (e.g., lobster gets served for lunch).

• Google engineers spend 20 per cent of their time pursuing and developing their own ideas.• Google’s organizational hierarchy is flat.

• Google holds 64 per cent of the market share in its category in the U.S.

• In its 10-year history, Google has created more investor wealth in less time than any other company in history—US$10.6 billion in revenue earned.

• Sheryl Sandberg, a 37-year-old VP, made a mistake that cost Google several million dollars. When she informed founder Larry Page, he replied, “I’m so glad you made this mistake.”

The late management guru Peter Drucker observed that “maintaining yesterday is difficult and time consuming and therefore requires the institution’s scarcest and most valuable resources—and above all, its ablest people—to non-results.” Acting this way means your people are not available to create a successful tomorrow.

Mind Shift #6 – ‘Strategy must be reviewed twice a year.’ No, it must be reviewed twice a month at least!

In many management meetings, Bridges research has revealed that 85 per cent of managers’ time is spent on operational issues while about 15 per cent is spent on strategic issues. But leaders are not meant to solve day-to-day problems (although they do because it feels good and they can do it); they are responsible for crafting and implementing strategy.

What indicates that an organization is good at implementation? When that ratio gets reversed. That is, when 85 per cent of the managers’ time is spent on strategic issues and 15 per cent on operational issues.

Changing your strategy means changing the dialogue/agenda at your meetings and specifically at your management meetings. Once it’s successfully changed, the effect will cascade down through the organization. Your immediate reports will pay attention to what you pay attention to.

The catalyst for this dialogue change is frequently scheduled strategy reviews. If leaders are responsible for both crafting and executing strategy, doesn’t it follow that implementation should be discussed as frequently as possible? In my experience, successful implementation requires conducting strategy reviews every two weeks.

During these reviews, you are not analyzing the whole strategy. Rather, you break it down into small chunks. You would examine, for example, the actions being taken, the behaviors and the measures every two weeks. Then every quarter, the strategy would be reviewed in its entirety.

To predict where an organization will be in two years, therefore, do not look at its strategy on paper. Instead, pay attention to the daily actions its leaders and staff members take.

In this article, I have explained six Mind Shifts that leaders should adopt, but I probably haven’t succeeded in changing your mindset completely. Behavioral psychologists say it takes 21 days to make a change stick.

Still, I hope I have at least planted a seed of doubt in your thinking. This seed will be further fuelled by more study results and by your own experiences. Then you will be ready to adopt theses six Mind Shifts that will lead to success on your implementation journey.

Robin Speculand, the founder and CEO of Bridges Business Consultancy International, a pioneer in the field of strategy implementation. Widely acknowledged as a thought leader in implementation, Robin has written the bestselling books Bricks to Bridges - Make Your Strategy Come Alive, and Turning It On - Stories to Ignite, Excite and Engage. Robin is a masterful event facilitator and engaging keynote speaker. His work has been featured in the media, including BBC Global and Financial Times. For more details, go to bridges@bridgesconsultancy.com

Implementation Compass—A Tool to Make Strategy Implementation Come Alive

The Implementation Compass provides you with a structure that can make your strategy successful. Instead of wandering aimlessly through the implementation maze, following this Compass allows you to assess your implementation readiness and identify key areas to tackle.

The Implementation Compass—
· assesses your readiness to implement your strategy
· assists in crafting your Implementation Plan
· identifies the actions you need to take today to deliver tomorrow’s strategy.

The Implementation Compass has been developed by Bridges Business Consultancy Int based on eight years of research and testing with business clients around the world.

The Great Big Strategy Challenge

Implementation
You have just returned from the final two day regional leadership meeting. The team has finalised the strategy and the Board have signed off on it. All that is left to do is to implement it.

The leadership team spent six months crafting and crystallizing the strategy with the assistance of a strategic consultancy firm. The importance of responding to the rapid change in their market that had just transpired due to overseas competition was the initial catalyst that propelled the team to revisit the old strategy. Now after six months of hard discussion, market, competitor, financial and customer analysis the leadership team is ready to roll the new strategy out. The hardest part is over, right. Wrong!

Today in business, leaders are habitually underestimating the challenge of strategy implementation and as such nine out of ten strategy implementations fail.

Far too many leaders can more easily recall an implementation that failed – whether it was strategy, technology or marketing. It is time to correct this by putting the spot light on implementation.

You can have the greatest strategy in the world but if you can not implement it then it is no more value than the paper it is written on.

One of the largest contributing factors to the high number of failed implementations is that when leaders return to their offices after creating their challenge, they are commonly left on their own to work out how to implement it. They must figure out how to inform the people in their division of the imminent changes; explain what needs to change and why; review the way the team is working and the current rewards and recognition to ensure it supports the new strategy; motivate their people; assess the current measures being used and report back to their peers. It is a multitude of activities that creates a maze that many leaders become lost in. What they need is a compass to guide them through this implementation maze.

The “Implementation Compassä” is a tool that provides you with the structure for your strategy to make it come alive. Instead of wandering aimlessly through the implementation maze it allows you to assess your implementation readiness and identify the key areas to tackle. It has been developed by Bridges Business Consultancy Int (the company I work for) after 5 years of research and testing with clients around the world.

1. The Implementation Compassä works for both small and large organizations
2. Allows you to assess your current status in preparing to implement.
3. The Compass guides leaders through the eight critical elements. The degree of importance of each component varies for each organization. For example, one organization may spend more time on measurement while another focuses more on communication.
4. The Compass helps your organization maintain momentum throughout its journey.

Below is a description of the eight elements of the Implementation Compass and key questions to consider before embarking on your implementation journey.

Eight Critical Components

1. People It is not leadership that implements strategy but people

Questions to consider: Do you have the right caliber of people? Do they have the competencies to execute the new strategy? Are they motivated to do so?

2. Biz Case The emotional and numerical rational for adopting the strategy

Questions to consider: Why is the strategy center stage? Do your staff members know what to do differently on the Monday morning after implementation is announced? Do they have the right tools and techniques to implement the strategy?

3. Communicate People can only adopt a strategy if they know about it and understand it

Questions to consider: Do all your staff know what the new strategy is and why it has been adopted? Is the strategy communicated in a way that it comes alive?

4. Measure “You must inspect what you expect.” Have the right measures in place

Questions to consider: Do you have the right measures for the new strategy? Are the measures being leveraged to guide the implementation?

5. Culture You must change the day-to-day activities of your staff members and have a culture that support and fosters change

Questions to consider: What needs to change in the fundamental way you are working so as to encourage the adoption of the new culture? Are we using the language of the new strategy?

6. Process There must be congruence between what you say you are going to do (strategy implementation) and what you are doing (the process)

Questions to consider: Do your processes support or hinder the new strategy? Where can you redesign the process so it is more supportive and effective?

7. Reinforce You must reinforce the expected behaviors so that they are continuously repeated
Questions to consider: When staff members step in to the unknown and demonstrate the new behaviors, are they recognized and rewarded? Does the reinforcement encourage them to continue to demonstrate the desired new behaviors?

8. Review The weakest of the eight points among leaders – you must constantly review to make sure the right actions are being taken to deliver the right results

Questions to consider: Do you know if the actions being taken are producing the right results? Do you know what has been learned from the implementation in the last 90 days? Do you know what you need to start doing differently from today?

Strategy Implementation: we got the people factor wrong!

Most of us are familiar with the expression, “People resist change”. No they don’t! This was just one of the startling results from five years of research we conducted in south-east Asia. We then considered that Asian values may be a contributing factor, so we compared our findings to other regions and discovered similar results.

For years we have happily gone along with the notion that when organizations are making large changes, most people resist. They could have a fear of losing responsibility or stepping into the unknown or trying new things and, as such, we have carved out strategy implementation based on these wrong assumptions.

An even more startling outcome from the survey is that nine out of 10 strategies fail to be implemented successfully. Could part of the reason be that our assumptions are wrong about how people react? Once again, we then discovered that similar research in other parts of the world came to the same conclusions.

The results of the survey and our own client work with governments, multinationals and local companies across four continents started us on a journey to find out why so many strategy implementations fail (see Figure 1) and how staff members respond to changes. We were again surprised by just how many people support or go along with organizational changes.


Figure 1: Top challenges faced in implementing strategy

Bridges Business Consultancy Int. (henceforth “Bridges”) surveyed businesses from various industries across south-east Asia over a five-year period about the challenges they face when implementing strategy, as part of the research that we carried out for our book: Brick to Bridges – Make Your Strategy Come Alive.

Ranking Challenge
1 Gaining support and action
2 Communicating the change
3 Overcoming resistance from staff
4 Support of senior management
5 Aligning processes
6 Tracking success of implementation
7 Changing rewards and recognition
8 Acquiring customer feedback
9 Implementing new technology
10 Acquiring budget

(© Bridges, 2005)

[End of Figure 1]


Dynamics of change: saboteurs, groupies and mavericks

The term “implementing strategy” translates to staff members as their having to change the way they work and/or do more work. They generally respond in one of three ways – indifference, resistance or support. Across the organization, the distribution of these responses falls into a bell curve.

On the left side of the curve is the 20 percent of staff members who resist change. These people tend to complain about anything and everything. They badmouth the implementation behind the leader’s back and complain that the money should be spent on bonuses instead of on lost causes like yet another management fad. Based on their characteristics, we call them “saboteurs”. If they win, the whole implementation fails.

The middle group of the bell curve, comprising 60 percent of the staff, sits on the fence. These people neither support the implementation nor oppose it. They come in at 9am and leave at 6pm. In between, they just do their work. They don’t volunteer for additional work, but they don’t actively resist change. Based on their characteristics, we call them “groupies”. They like the safety in numbers.

The final 20 percent are those who welcome the change, embrace it and willingly support it. They are the early adopters, and are drivers of the change. Based on their characteristics, we call them “mavericks”.

What we need to do differently

Previously, leaders led people through strategy implementation as if most were resisting. The successful strategy implementations that we studied recognized the three different groups, and knew where to focus their energy and how to lead each group.

Which group do we start with - saboteurs, groupies or mavericks? Take a moment to think about which group you have focussed on in the past. The right group to focus on is the 20 percent who welcome and support the change – the mavericks.

Why?

We know that implementing strategy is difficult. The odds are stacked against us before we even start. We need to make it as easy as possible for the organization concerned to succeed. The 20 percent who support the implementation will come on board more readily than the others. Many of them recognize the need for change without being told the reasons. They see the benefits and immediately start to take action.

By starting here, you will attain early wins that can be shared and celebrated with the rest of the organization. In addition, this group provides you with the feedback necessary for tweaking and improving the implementation.

While this positive group is adopting the implementation, it influences the middle group. Remember, those in the middle group sit on the fence and could fall either way. If they are influenced by the positive 20 percent, they will start to respond positively to the implementation. They are the followers. Although that middle 60 percent do not have the enthusiasm and drive to charge out of the starting gate, you can move them along at a steady pace in the right direction.

Once you have 80 percent of the organization moving in the right direction, you have created a critical mass and built up enough impetus for the strategy to start. But what happens to the remaining 20 percent, who resist the change?

About half of these (10 percent of the total staff) will resist but, if handled correctly, will eventually start to move in the right direction. They drag their feet and make a lot of noise, but ultimately fall into line. The remaining 10 percent, if you are lucky, will leave your organization and join your favorite competitor! Maybe they had the right competencies when they were hired, but today, they will slow you down and possibly cause trouble. Regard them as not being right for the job. It is time to say, “Thank you and goodbye!”

General Electric uses a similar approach to this bell curve, calling it the vitality curve. The vitality curve, also in the shape of a bell curve, identifies the top 20 percent of performers, the middle 70 percent and the bottom 10 percent. Every year, the bottom 10 percent is asked to leave.

After a few years, we identified a fourth group, who were initially hidden. Based on their characteristics we call them “double agents”. They initially resist, but can become mavericks. (See Figure 2)

Why is there the notion that people resist change? Because of all the groups, saboteurs make the most noise and, as a result, create the largest impression.


Figure 2: How to identify each group

Groupies
Groupies believe there is safety in numbers and, as such, are passive even though the change is an opportunity for them. Groupies are the backbone of any organization. They do the day-to-day work that has to be done.

Saboteurs
Saboteurs are out to sabotage the implementation. To identify saboteurs in your organization, ask “Who is likely to respond actively but to see the change as a threat?” If the saboteurs win, the organization loses.

Double agents
After observing many teams tackle the challenges of implementation, Bridges came to recognize another group who, over time, demonstrated different characteristics. The double agents are hidden among the saboteurs, which is why they were not initially identified. Initially, double agents appear to oppose the implementation. They stand back to see if this strategy is just another management fad or if it will last. When they see that it is succeeding, however, they switch from opposing it to being strong supporters. Only by their own free will can double agents cross over and become supporters. This happens once they see the desired actions taking place. To identify double agents in your organization, ask “Who is likely to respond actively and see the change as a threat, but is open to persuasion?” Double agents can be convinced only through actions, not words.

Mavericks
Mavericks willingly and enthusiastically support the implementation. To identify mavericks in your organization, ask: “Who is likely to respond actively to the force of change and see it as an opportunity?” A secondary question you can ask to identify Mavericks is: “If your boss told you to fire 80 percent of your staff, whom would you keep?” In most organizations, leaders do not recognize and reward mavericks enough.

[End of Figure 2]


How do you effectively lead each of the groups?

Mavericks need to be supported and rewarded for their contributions. A leader shows the mavericks what needs to be done and then steps back and lets them get on with it. When the results are achieved, the leaders say “thank you”, and reward the people who made the implementation happen.

Groupies must be driven and encouraged. Groupies, remember, sit on the fence and can fall either way. Therefore it is important that a leader walks among the groupies, driving them forward and encouraging them to get involved.

Saboteurs must be handled carefully and effectively. To reinforce a key message, do not let saboteurs become the focal point of your leadership efforts.

Double agents have to be persuaded and convinced. An individual, no matter how charismatic, cannot lead them. They will only come on board when they see the right actions taking effect and are convinced that the organization has crossed the point where it will not turn back.

Here is a simple way to remember the effective leadership style for leading each of the groups. It involves the three leadership styles:

1. Lead from the front. To lead saboteurs through an implementation, you must be in control and hands-on. Be aware of what they are doing and how they are doing it. This means leading them from the front, in the direction you want them to go rather than the direction they want to go.

2. Lead from the middle. With groupies, you must get in among them. They will naturally follow, so you do not need to be at the front. But you must be among them to guide them gently in the right direction, show them what to do and encourage them along the way.

3. Lead from behind. With mavericks and double agents, it is best to lead from behind. The mavericks simply need to be shown what and why. Then they will embrace the change. Your role is to support and recognize them for adopting the change and new behaviors. Double agents cannot be pushed or challenged. Rather, they must be left to come around on their own terms, with some gentle direction from behind. By communicating the actions already taken and the results achieved, they will not go amiss.


Box-out quotes

“We were again surprised by just how many people support or go along with organizational changes.”

“By starting with the mavericks, you will attain early wins that can be shared and celebrated with the rest of the organization. In addition, this group provides you with the feedback necessary for tweaking and improving the implementation.”

Robin Speculand is the CEO of Bridges Business Consultancy Int, which specializes in making strategy come alive.

He is a specialist in implementing strategy and author of Bricks to Bridges – Making Your Strategy Come Alive and Turning It On – Sure-Fire Business Stories to Ignite, Excite and Entertain. Bricks To Bridges can be purchased through Gazelle Book Services Ltd, Tel 01524 68765 Fax 01524 63232 and is available on Amazon.

Before founding Bridges, he was Asia Pacific Regional Vice President for Citigroup. He has lived and worked in the UK, US and Australia, and has operated in Asia since 1989. He holds an MBA from the National University of Singapore. Robin is the founder and president of Business Roundtable for Innovative Management, a Singapore-based management think tank and a founding member of Asia Speakers Association. He can be contacted at: bridges@bridgesconsultancy.com or via Bridges Business Consultancy Int website: http://www.bridgesconsultancy.com/
or by phone at (65) 6886 0123

One Million Pound Investment

http://www.bridgesconsultancy.com/newsroom/articles/One%20Million%20Pound%20Investment.pdf

Living Organizational Values: The Bridges Value Inculcation Model”

http://www.bridgesconsultancy.com/newsroom/articles/Living_organizational_values.pdf

Strategy Implementation

Nine out of ten strategies fail to be implemented successfully.

We are starting to understand the very important lesson that implementing strategy is harder than creating the right strategy from the study of success and failures of previous strategy implementations.

When we triumph over implementation it can become a blue ocean strategy – that is a competitive differentiator and while there are many tools and techniques for crafting strategy there are very few for implementing it. Rosabeth Moss Kanter put it very eloquently when she said: “Ethical standards and our ability to groom future leaders inevitably decline. That’s why execution, or “making it happen,” is so important. Execution is the un-idea; it means having the mental and organizational flexibility to put new business models into practice, even if they counter what you’re currently doing. That ability is central to running a organization right now. So rather than chasing another new management fad, or expecting still another “magic bullet” to come along, organizations should focus on execution to effectively use the organizational tools we already have.”

To further support Rosabeth Moss Kanter comment, consider the fact from Barons that only 15% of the 974 programs reviewed in Fiscal 2005 were rated effective.

In addition, from 1917 to 1987 only 39 of the original Forbes 100 survived and only two outperformed the market, GE and Eastman Kodak.

Many strategies are expected to deliver growth. This creates even more issues due to the “Growth Paradox”. As businesses grow they create new and larger challenges which again emphasizes the need to be good at strategy implementation.

It is time to switch the focus from just crafting strategy to crafting and implementing it. If for no other reason, it is estimated that U.S. managers spend more than $10 billion annually on strategic analysis and strategy formulation. If 90% fail then that is a waste of $9 billion.
Strategy implementation is a relative new field that’s genesis was the high failure rate and lack of a framework. The field is about 10 years old and the research on the subject is just being gathered. There has been various research:

1. Kaplan and Norton, the originators of the Balance Scorecard, published also that 90% of organizations fail to execute their strategies successfully.

2. In a study of 200 organizations in the Times 1000, 80% of directors said they had the right strategies but only 14% thought they were implementing them well, no doubt linked to the finding that despite 97% of directors having a ’strategic vision’, only 33% reported achieving ’significant strategic success’. (Source: Why do only one third of UK organizations achieve strategic success?)

3. Harvard Business School teaches that at least 70% of all change initiatives fail.

4. A long term study by Newcastle University, (1973 – 1989) showed that business success is governed more by how well strategies are implemented than how good the strategy is to begin with.

5. The Economist Intelligence Unit reported that organizations realize only around 60% of their strategy’s potential value because of failures in planning and execution.

With the pendulum now swinging away from leader’s main responsibility of crafting the strategy to the recognition that they are also responsible also for its implementation and that can be even harder, there is a fast growing global interest in the field.

Strategy implementation is defined as the actions an organization takes today to deliver the strategy, tomorrow. The key word is “action”. People in an organization are always taking action.

The critical question is, “Is it the right action?” Are the actions that their staff members are taking today driving the implementation forward? We know staff members are always busy and frequently have more work than they have hours in the day but strategy implementation is the collective individual actions taken every minute of every day by every staff member. If there are not enough of the right actions being taken then the strategy is heading for the graveyard.

“One of top management’s biggest blind spots is the failure to recognize that any significant shift in strategy requires changes in day-to-day activities throughout the organization. Small shifts may require only minor changes. Significant shifts require significant changes-from subtle to sweeping-that can only be successful if implemented systematically. And people at all levels can either help or hinder the transition.”

Executing Your Strategy, Morgan, Levitt & Malek

Leader’s also have a fundamental responsibility to create the right conditions in the organizations. They must, for example, encourage the right people; clearly communicate the strategy objectives, create the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs); align the culture to the implementation; redesign processes, change the way staff members are reinforced to encourage the right behaviors and actions for the new strategy to be implemented and then review the strategy implementation every two weeks. This can be an overwhelming list but if it was easy to deliver the promises of a new strategy then nine out of ten implementations would not fail. And the pass mark is when the leaders deliver at least 50% of the objectives of the new strategy.

The leaders must identify what needs to be done and where to put the organization’s focus.

Although it is not unheard of for two organizations to have the same strategy, for example number one in the industry or differentiate through customer service or leading product, each organization’s implementation of the strategy is unique and the leader must first identify what needs to be done and then lead staff members to perform the required behaviors and actions.
The leader’s role is to translate the strategy in to daily actions that staff members can take.
Strategy implementation is not the same as change management.

Change management is a systematic approach to dealing with change, both from the perspective of an organization and on the individual level. It is applied as the solution for running out a new sales program as it is for strategy. Strategy implementation is a specific approach which drives the right actions today to deliver tomorrow’s strategy. The challenge is for leaders to stop doing what doesn’t work.

Change management is flawed as a methodology for implementing strategy as the research is revealing. If we keep doing the same thing then no wonder we keep failing and the strategy fails! It is time to change the way we think about change. We must go beyond change management as we know it and focus on implementation.

Consider that 30 years ago management was about control and change management was designed as command and control. But business has dramatically changed. We have moved to empowerment and a teaming methodology. Many leaders use change management out of ignorance, as they are not aware of an alternative and end up taking the wrong the actions.
After crafting the strategy for the organization’s future the leader’s role is to ensure that staff members are set up for success in its implementation by being guided by the leadership on what actions to take. The problem on many occasions is that even the leaders do not know what the right actions to take are. In addition leaders often have the wrong mindset. Leaders often underestimate the implementation challenge and what is involved. They believe that once they have created a new strategy, the hardest part is over. Not true. The hardest part – implementation – is just beginning.

In the 10 per cent of organizations that successfully implement their strategies the leaders double the effort compared to what they had spent crafting it. In some cases, leaders are cognizant that implementation requires extra effort. In reality, however, very few are able to free up valuable time and resources to do justice to the implementation process. In other cases, leaders become so caught up in managing the day-to-day business that they lose sight of their goal to implement the new strategy and as such are taking the wrong actions.

The research in the field of strategy implementation started to become part of the mainstream awareness in 1999 when Fortune Magazine ran a front page on “Why CEO’s Fail”. The article, which has since been quoted on numerous occasions, explained that “organizations fail to successfully implement strategy not because of bad strategy but because of bad execution”. This was one of the first times the field of implementation (execution and implementation are interchangeable), had received major exposure. In 2002 Ram Charan followed up the article by co-authoring with Larry Bossidy Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, Crown Business, 2002. The book made execution a common word in business conversations. Since its publications there has been a greater focus on the topic by leaders and a handful of books and articles have followed on the same topic.

There is, however, still a vast gap of knowledge, techniques and tools in the field.

For much of the last 40 years the focus in business has been how to create the right strategy and quite rightly. It is the leader’s responsibility to create strategy, it is what they are paid the big bucks for and it is critical to the success of the organization that they get it right. A plethora of tools and techniques have been created to assist in the strategy formulation. Hundreds and even thousands of books have been written on the topic and in every city, consultants are standing by to offer leaders their support and wisdom. As a result we have improved at understanding strategy and how to create it. Although it is worth noting that even strategy is still being developed. Consider the simple fact that we do not have a globally common definition for the word “strategy”.

There is a change in the wind. In the last ten years we have started to ask, “What happens after we create the strategy and why are there so many failed strategy implementations?” These questions are just starting to be asked because we are just discovering from the research that so many strategy implementations fail.

Instinctively most leaders know that implementation is tough and can recall at least one corporate wide implementation; they participated in, that failed. It is, however, only in the last few years that strategy implementation has started to become a recognized field in its own right. We are starting to understand that implementation fails not because we have the wrong strategy, in most cases, but because the challenge of implementing the strategy is tougher than most CEOs and leaders anticipate and they underestimate the whole challenge.

Professor Joseph Bowler of Business Administration at Harvard Business School http://harvardbusiness.org/ recently said, “One of the criticisms we would have of some of our colleagues who have studied strategy (and some consultants who advice on strategy) is that they assume that once you design strategy it gets executed. They don’t look inside the process and realize that it’s much more complicated.”

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