Let’s roll back the timeline a bit. Before COVID, the implementation of strategy hovered at less than a 30% success rate (per McKinsey).
With my own recent research of more than 40 senior leaders since the COVID disruption, I’ve confirmed that COVID has driven high-performance firms towards even less efficiency in implementation (see my summary article here).
Combining these two effects answers the question of why teams are deeply fatigued right now, and also give us insight into the path forward.
Working harder won’t get us out of this trajectory. We need to get clarity on the drivers to arrest them and build a more efficient path that’s not consuming us from the inside out.
I recently delivered a virtual executive workshop for a group of senior leaders who were very interested in developing clarity around this problem and the solution. We looked at the major friction points and how they as leaders of their teams can partner with implementation leaders to accelerate their firm’s recovery.
Three Reasons Most Implementation Projects Never Get to the Finish Line
As part of the session, we explored the top three reasons this happens:
The first reason we discussed was the inability to sustain momentum. Just when a business wanted to step on the gas, we found that teams got bogged down. This type of friction is created internally, and largely is the firm over functioning on quality and process, while still developing its new solution. When we drilled deeper, we found that the very mechanisms that made them operationally effective pushed them into paralysis when applied to a strategic program. When you are working in an emergent world, you can’t analyze your way to success.
The second reason, is that in mature firms, talent tends to be clustered by function. This inhibits the free flow of insight, ideas, and actions across the organization as new strategies are being executed. Once again, the very strong tendency of the firm to carefully partition resources and keep good books on the investments for accounting and budget accuracy serves to decelerate projects.
The third reason is that mature firms tend to defer demonstrating customer value until the very last step. For example, a savvy chef, when opening a new restaurant, starts serving meals to “test” clients weeks before the actual opening. Why? So they can work out all the issues that only show up when it’s time to serve the client. Another good example is Elon Musk’s original simple electric roadster, which allowed Tesla to experiment with what it would be like to deliver high-performing electrically driven cars before they needed to serve up the complexity of a sophisticated SUV.
The natural path is for firms to use the same value delivery process that creates current products and services to inform their fresh discovery work. It’s a great way to deliver products and solutions that have product and market alignment. It’s very inefficient to discover a fresh solution.
What Senior Leaders Can Do
The first piece of coaching we discussed was to visibly demonstrate a bias of taking action over dithering. When you are tempted to ask for another study, ask yourself what you are really looking for. Is it time to consider? Lower the risk hurdle? Perhaps you can scope an experiment that will get you there much faster than more simulation.
Secondly, become a recruiter and air cover specialist then it comes time for the cross-functional team. You know where the real value-added players are – be sure to help them free up from routine work to unlock the larger value of strategic work. When a team needs resources, let it be known that reasonable asks will be funded.
Lastly, be relentless in helping catalyze proof of concept products or services with live client feedback. When you see a group “squirreling” away and wanting to perfect before testing the system, don’t take no for an answer. The learning from a system’s dry run at the middle of the timeline always exceeds the cost of the incremental investment to create the prototypes.
How To Get Help
It’s very hard to read the label when you are inside the jar.
In the work I do with individual leaders and firms, we work hard to diagnose root causes and provide the coaching and process tools to help them multiply rather than consume internal resources. The diagnosis will help with focus and alignment towards a solution, then it is a matter of sustaining the effort to install the knowledge, vocabulary, and habits that sustain the gains.
What Next?
If you’d like to talk more about how this system could be put to work for you and can help break through the most difficult implementation projects, please reach out to me. You can use this link to book an appointment directly, or email me at scott@scottpropp.com.
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