The chief operating officer asked me to have a coffee with him to share an idea with me.
I said “Sure and you know I’ll be sending you an invoice if I can be of assistance.”
I could sense his smile as he replied “Of course David – not a problem.”
We met and soon he stated his idea.
“I want our entire leadership team to participate in our strategy meeting” he said. “What do you think?”
I nodded, delighted, though I asked “Why do you want to do that?”
He said “I’m sick of our habit of senior leaders deciding strategy then forcing it on the people who have to execute the plan without their input, only to find later that there are missing resources, capabilities and changing circumstances. I think it is a core reason why we don’t get the results we plan for.”
“Good for you” I said “It’s great to hear you decide that, it certainly will help deliver better outcomes.”
He nodded “OK, thanks. That’s it”.
He looked ready to leave.
“Hold on, isn’t there more to it than that?” I asked.
He sat back and thought for a moment. “Well, we have to agree, then make it happen.”
“Absolutely, I agree” I said, “And do you think making clear distinctions between strategy, implementation, tactics (or operations), execution and planning would help?
He responded “I get the distinction between strategy and operations, where strategy is the big picture outcomes and why we are doing it, and operations are the details of how we deliver the results.”
He went on “I get that planning is applied to everything, but what’s the difference between implementation and execution?”
I said “We don’t execute strategy; we have it implemented.
Middle management implement the strategy and provide resources, measures and coordination. They do that in collaboration with the operational leaders who then delegate to execution team leaders.
Operations or tactics are executed.
The operational leaders may also be execution team leaders.
Execution is the action, competence, commitment and discipline to deliver the desired results.”
I continued “When an organisation has all those in place, as well as including the right people at all planning stages, there is best alignment between strategy and execution. What do you think?”
“Have you got a model for that?” he asked.
I said “Sure – that’s my SITEP model – I’ll email it to you now with my invoice.”
Here it is:
