Strategy Implementation Post the Covid-19 Crisis

Over the past months, we have seen unprecedented changes in the world, which have transformed the business landscape in which organizations operate.

Besides the acceleration of the changing consumer’s needs; CEOs, Boards, directors, executives, leaders and senior managers have to face: 

a) a never-ending crisis,

b) languish market recovery and

c) an increase of new fierce entrants in their industries, either as start-ups or businesses coming from other industries in desperate need of other sources of revenues.

Unfortunately, some business management theories and frameworks that we learned in the past are currently taught in top business schools, like Harvard, MIT, Wharton, Insead, IE, or London Business School; don't apply any longer. Many scholars and experts are trying to adapt or create new frameworks that can help leaders succeed in this unusual scenario. One of the new areas that has received considerable attention recently is strategy implementation, a field in which we have researched hundreds of companies to understand what makes the very few successful when implementing their strategies.

In this post, we share four topics that will be, or continue to be, trending issues in the area of strategy implementation during and after the post-covid19 crisis; and that every leader should put on their priority list if they want to increase their chances for implementing their strategy successfully 

“Keep the organization focused, don’t run away from the “tough choices”, and follow them through”

In the past years, we have seen many scholars and business management gurus, and several Harvard Business Review articles, highlighting the importance of focus as individuals, leaders, and organizations. It is an easy and fancy word to say; I have seen many executives buy-in, and believe, the benefits of "less is more" – yet when they are with the executive team around the table when it comes to the group taking the tough choices, it is so hard to make them.

A very nice example of a lack of focus is the comeback of one of the toys from our childhood: Lego. Once a leading business, Lego almost disappeared in the late '90s due to a complete loss of focus. Between 1994 and 1998, they entered into a frenzied state of launching new products to market, going from 109 in 1994 to 347 in 1998. The new CEO, an ex-McKinsey consultant (and project manager), turned Lego around by recovering that initial focus.

We recommend that you decide with your executive team:

• With which one, two, three, or a maximum of five products/service (the less, the better), your organization will pay full attention to promote, improve, and sell? 

• Which are the top three strategic initiatives your team will execute, no matter if the organization falls apart?

• And which other initiatives you are currently working on that should be cancelled – I have seen many organizations afraid of "cancelling" projects, so they use the word "delay."

"Complexity is one of the biggest hinders for the agility of response; it creates implementation paralysis."

After the financial crisis busted in 2007, organizations have been trying to reduce the complexity of their structures to become more agile in responding to the new, and unprecedented business landscape. Both public and private sector organizations have launched many initiatives to become "leaner", "fitter", "nimbler", "cut the fat"…. yet, these efforts have been short term impulses without a clear vision of where the organization was going, which in the end have often had the opposite effect: increased complexity and a permanent feeling of “never-ending change in the organization but going nowhere”. A marketing manager in a large international bank recently told me: “I don’t know anymore what I will be doing in 6 months, it is not clear if my department will still be there, we have been in a fire fighting mode over the past three years”.

We can also see that increased complexity in the number of committees that your organization has. Behind this proliferation, there is the perception that people participating in committees feel essential; the more you belong to, the higher your status in the organization is. Committees' objectives are often around oversight, approval, validation, monitoring certain activities and processes, yet what the do is to slow down time to market and reduce the agility to respond to the competition or changing market needs. 

Here is an interesting article from IMD Professor Wade explaining the issue of complexity and the impact it had on BMW's bottom line.

One way to reduce complexity and increase agility, it to apply the following principle: assign corporate teams to lead the strategic mid/long term objectives transversally (e.g., innovation, strategic initiatives,…), while empower and leave local flexibility to the business units to work on their local priorities and short term objectives (e.g., sales, customer services,…). 

“Alignment has to start at the Top and then cascaded throughout the organization”

In a survey on strategy implementation from PwC Strategy&, executives responded to the question: "what one thing would make the most difference to closing the strategy-implementation gap at your company if resolved?" Alignment to the strategy was by far the number one answer, with more than 20% of respondents. 

There is no doubt that alignment at the top is one of the critical factors in successful strategy implementation. The executive team has to develop a shared understanding of the vision and strategic objectives of the organization. Often this means that senior executives will need to adjust and give up some of their own plans to reach that alignment. They have to be fully in sync and talk with one voice, and they also have to believe and be 100% committed to achieving that vision and common objectives. Over time we have become "socially smart," we need to see the body language of a leader to recognize in 10 seconds if he/she believes in what they say.

That aligned vision and roadmap have to be translated into a simple one-page document that every single employee of the organization understands. One of the most successful templates for this is the Strategy Map, from the Balanced Scorecard concept from Harvard professors Kaplan & Norton. But you can develop your own strategic roadmap, don’t get stuck with the form, what matters is the content and the key messages. 

To address that need, the Institute has developed the Strategy Implementation Roadmap© (SIR), which can be used as a compass to help organizations and leaders better understand the critical elements of successful implementation. The 

SIR provides the basis for the Institute's courses and provides a step-by-step guide for implementing a strategy. 

"Establish a central Strategy Planning and Implementation Office reporting to the CEO, with a seat in the executive suite, to drive strategy implementation."

This year we will continue to see more and more organizations establishing a Strategy Planning and Implementation Office that will report to the CEO and whose director will be a member of the top management team. Today every organization - small, medium, and large - have multiple departments and entities working, in one way or another, on strategy formulation and implementation matters:

• Strategic planning office

• Corporate planning office

• CEO office

• Project portfolio management office

• Program management office

• Project management office and so on ....

This proliferation of departments or offices, which have significant overlapping activities and responsibilities, create large amounts of bureaucracy, multiplication of reports, and a lot of frustration, which leads to organizational paralysis and failure to monitor the implementation of the strategy.

After the Covid19 crisis, we will see how organizations consolidate and streamline all these departments, creating the Strategy Planning and Implementation Office. This will combine both formulation and implementation with driving strategy implementation. Due to the importance and sensitivity of this new central independent entity - which breaks lots of little empires, silos, and old habits - it needs to be driven by the CEO. Interestingly, today you can already find several jobs in LinkedIn with the Strategy Implementation Officer role.

The Strategy Implementation Institute (the Institute) was founded by Robin Speculand and Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, two recognised experts in the field of strategy implementation and project management. Its Advisory Board includes several respected authorities, such as Rita McGrath and Mark Langley. 

Recognizing that implementing strategy successfully is a rare and highly appreciated skill that distinguishes the most influential leaders in business, the Institute has created an online community for those passionate about implementation to learn, share and grow. The Institute provides the training, certification, and resources to people looking to acquire the knowledge and skills to be implementation specialists.

Contact: Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, Co-Founder & Director

T: +32.479.80.94.18  |  E: antonio@si-institute.org