Strategy realization: the next level are you ready to realize your strategy?

Many companies realize their strategies too little too late. Our extensive research and consulting work that forms the basis for this book confirm this conclusion. The major reason for this lies in the one-sided view on strategy that executive managers have. This classical view on strategy revolves around the development of a well thought-out strategic plan that is implemented rigorously. The origins of this view can be found in the Command & Control management style that is well versed in many boardrooms: managers who believe in the lure of the success of rigorous planning and the subsequent delegation of the accountability for the implementation of the strategic plan.

A different way of looking is to view strategy realization as a process of discovery. In this perspective, the people in the organization must learn to put the strategy into practice. Managers and professionals like account managers, engineers and researchers develop new approaches to realize the strategie objectives.

The strategy they try to realize is based on management assumptions. Managers will form assumptions on how the strategy will be received by clients and on the capability of their organization to deliver this strategy. As assumptions go, these can be right or wrong. The more intense the strategic renewal, the more managers will have to rely on their assumptions and the higher the probability that these assumptions will be proven wrong.

When an assumption is proven wrong, managers are faced with a strategic dilemma: must the strategy be changed or should the organization change its approach to realize it. Both changes are hard to make as every organization has its favorite approach to doing business, often based on hard-won survival lessons. This book is about reconciling these two perspectives.

We will outline what we consider the two key processes to manage strategy realization. The strategy feedback process is about using planning and control instruments in an effective manner in order to get focus and discipline. We found that there is room for improvement in this area for many companies. The strategy feed forward process is about influencing and changing behavior in order to solve strategic dilemmas. We observe that managers often do not benefit from the informal early warning signals that are abound in their organization. We conclude that these two management processes put quite different demands to leaders. The strategy feedback process is about providing direction and getting results, the strategy feed forward process is about facilitating dialogue and making people change.

This book is meant to provide you with food for thought. We have benefitted from the learning lessons of executive teams in numerous companies like ABN AMRO, Achmea, KPN, Nuon, Shell, TNT. Unilever and Dutch government projects: High Speed Train (HSL-Zuid) and Road Pricing (Anders Betalen voor Mobiliteit). We do not believe that these cases result in ideal solutions that are universally applicable. By combining some of our insights with your own experience, we believe however that you can significantly improve the strategy realization process in your organization.