Strategy execution capability: Skills for goal execution / Skills for strategy execution

Read on, if…

• You have a great idea that you want to build a business on
• You have P&L responsibility for a business that has been doing really well but is being challenged by the growing competitive landscape
• You head a business that has achieved remarkable growth in the past but somehow you’ve not been able to grow as fast in recent times
• You want to build a “great” organization
• Or, if you’re just interested in knowing more…

Great ideas are hard to come by. Think about the hours of brain storming you would have when you were putting together your business. Now that it’s up and running you’re faced with a number of things that keep you awake at night; revenue growth, profitability margins, customer acquisition, customer retention and I’m sure the list just goes on….

Well, I’m sure you’d agree with me that there is no magic formula that can take away all your troubles at once. But when approached tactfully and systematically, you’re certainly going to increase the chances of finding a solution that can work. These 13 things about your organization are those that you cannot overlook, whatever be the stage of your company.

• Clarity on strategic intent: Wait… before you jump at me telling me that you obviously have a strategy in mind, let me preface by saying that I certainly acknowledge that you have a strategy in mind and a sound one at that! But the point here is about the cohesiveness of the strategy among your leadership team and a strategy that cuts across all the quadrants of a business life cycle, which is sadly, often overlooked.
  
• Capability: Is your organization capable of delivering that strategy?
• Alignment: Is your organization aligned to your thought process?
• Readiness: Are the organizational initiatives you’ve planned scalable? Would they be redundant later?
• Performance enabling systems: Are the systems you peruse on a daily basis helping you achieve your strategy?
• Conducive Work environment:How conducive is the work environment to help the organization execute the strategy?
• Expectations understanding: How well are the expectations communicated and understood by all the stakeholders? Does everyone know how they should contribute to help the organization achieve its goals?
• Risk mitigation:How well are risks across functions identified and managed?
• Learning: How well is learning managed to help the organization execute its strategy and remain competitive?
• Knowledge management: How well is knowledge within the organization managed? Are you having to reinvent the wheel many times at various levels of your organization, thus limiting your response times?
• Innovation: How well is the innovation mechanism managed within each function to help the organization stay competitive?
• Customer orientation: How oriented is the organization to its customers? Does everyone know what matters to the customer the most and how to engage with the customer to ensure that the customer perceives us as the best choice for what we do?
• Knowledge of the customer: How well does the organization know about its customers? Do we know what defines the buying pattern of our customer and what is the value we add? In essence, do we know who will buy our services and why?

All these 13 things can be measured and tracked. As the saying goes, what get’s measured, get’s done! You don’t have to have a standard list of measures. Use what works for you, but measure them, track them, work on them and keep improving them.