Why Do So Many Strategies Fail?

Is your strategy working? broken? partially implemented? understood? piecemeal?

Strategy without action is a nightmare.

Action without a strategy is chaos.

— Japanese Proverb

The CEO’s primary responsibility is to develop a business strategy that creates value. This is a difficult job even with the assistance he / she has from their C-level executives. For this senior management team to ensure that an organization continues to realize value over time is even more difficult. Established businesses where the C-suite does not adapt their organization to external threats such as their customers’ changing values and demands are vulnerable to reduced revenues and flat or declining profitability.

At the core of this failure is the unfortunate fact that leaders focus on the parts rather than the whole. At the heart of this circumstance is the truth that everything-is-connected-to-everything-else. Changes made to one part of the organization can easily and unknowingly create bottlenecks and suboptimal performance in another areas.

The C-suite needs —

• visibility

• end-to-end and top-to-bottom traceability

• line of sight

• a holistic view of how their organization works

• a clear understanding of the activities their people perform that contribute to their organization’s strategic objectives

These elements are absolutely necessary for the C-suite to make informed decisions and do its job, acting quickly, responsibly, and with confidence in this day and age.

A distinctive configuration of activities (that translates into the way that a management system is implemented) is the best way to create an advantage that allows your organization to perform above your industry’s average rate of return—even when others pursue the same business model.