In today’s competitive business environment, a solid execution strategy is important for achieving sustained growth and success. It’s not only about having a great product or service – you need a plan to effectively carry out your goals. A well-defined execution strategy can help your business stay ahead of the curve, adapt to changing market conditions, and maximize your resources.

In this article, we’ll explore how a strong execution strategy can boost business growth and set you up for long-term success.

Understanding Why Getting Things Done Can Be Tough

Common obstacles that make it tough to get things done include:

• Overreliance on structural changes, such as reorganization, which leads to only short-term gains
• A lack of focus on decision rights and information flows

A lack of clear communication can affect a person’s ability to complete tasks and reach their goals. This can lead to:

• Decision paralysis
• An increase in overhead costs
• A lack of accurate information about projects’ viability

To overcome challenges and build the skills needed to execute a big plan effectively, individuals should focus on:

• Clarifying midmanager trade-offs about resourcing growth bets
• Using new tools to free trapped resources
• Creating support structures for integrating growth projects into existing businesses

It is also important to establish a more open, informal culture that encourages collaboration and trust among team members.

What Does It Mean to Get Things Done Right?

To get things done right, clear communication is essential. Jobs need to align with the strategy, and there should be commitment to the strategic plan. Performance should be measured and monitored. There should also be a balance between innovation and control.

A leader can ensure everyone is on board with the plan by clearly assigning accountability for profits to divisions, encouraging delegation at the country level, and fostering a more open, informal culture to improve information flow.

Strategies such as using diagnostics to test organizational capacity before launching growth efforts, clarifying mid-manager trade-offs about resourcing growth bets with new tools, freeing trapped resources with new frameworks, and integrating growth projects into existing businesses with support structures are effective for tracking plan effectiveness and making necessary adjustments.

The Big Steps to Really Getting Things Done

Get Everyone On Board with Your Big Plan

Leaders can effectively get everyone on board with a big plan by focusing on clear and open communication. They should:

• Establish accountability for profits unambiguously to the divisions.
• Encourage country managers to delegate standard operational tasks.
• Create an open and informal culture to improve information flow to senior management.

Additionally, leaders should:

• Hold regular meetings to discuss the company’s most pressing issues.
• Foster trust required for collaboration.

To ensure that jobs line up with the big plan, leaders can:

• Encourage cross-company communication.
• Utilize new tools for clarifying midmanager trade-offs about resourcing growth bets.

Leaders can also:

• Deploy diagnostics to test organizational capacity before launching growth efforts.
• Construct new frameworks for freeing trapped resources.

Lastly, the plan should be shared in a way that encourages everyone to contribute. This may include:

• Holding regular brown-bag lunches where people discuss pressing issues.
• Establishing quarterly performance-management meetings.
• Developing support structures for integrating growth projects into existing businesses.

Make Sure Jobs Line Up with the Big Plan

To make sure that the jobs and tasks in an organization line up with the overall plan, strategists should first find where the organization struggles to execute due to poor coordination. This can lead to reduced overall capacity of the business. They should then use diagnostics to test the organization’s capacity before starting efforts to grow. New tools can help clarify mid-level manager trade-offs about resourcing growth bets and create new frameworks for freeing up trapped resources.

Support structures should also be set up to integrate growth projects into existing businesses.

Strategies to ensure that employees’ day-to-day activities and responsibilities support the organization’s goals and objectives include allocating resources like assets, time, and people needed for implementing new growth strategies. This involves more than just relying on strategy creation, planning, performance metrics, and communication.

Additionally, the organization’s leadership needs to ensure that team members’ jobs and responsibilities contribute to the successful implementation of the overall plan. This may involve using a “smart customization” approach to align sales with standardized back-office processes and develop analytical support tools to give salespeople accurate information about cost implications of transactions and improve profitability.

Sharing the Plan So Everyone Can Help

Some effective ways to share the big plan with everyone are:

• Engage in clear and transparent communication across the organization.
• Use multiple channels to ensure the message reaches everyone.
• Hold regular meetings or town halls to discuss the plan and address questions or concerns.
• Align jobs with the strategy, provide clear guidelines, and create a sense of accountability to ensure everyone understands their role and responsibilities.
• Establish regular performance monitoring mechanisms, provide progress updates, and create opportunities for feedback and input from all levels of the organization to keep everyone informed and involved in the progress of the plan.
• This inclusive approach ensures that everyone feels a sense of ownership and is motivated to contribute to the successful execution of the plan.

Keep Track of How Well the Plan Is Working

Successful strategy execution requires a clear system for tracking progress and success. Clear metrics should be established to monitor the effectiveness of the plan and make adjustments as needed.

Regular progress assessments, ideally on a monthly or quarterly basis, are vital to ensure that the plan stays on track. Measures such as key performance indicators (KPIs), balanced scorecards, and performance dashboards can be used to monitor the effectiveness of the plan and make any necessary adjustments.

Additionally, tools like diagnostics and new frameworks can be used to test organizational capacity and clarify midmanager trade-offs about resourcing growth bets.

By employing these measures and tools, organizations can be proactive in evaluating the success of the plan and take necessary steps to ensure it remains effective in driving business growth.

Be Smart with New Ideas and Keeping Order

Implementing new ideas while maintaining order within a project or plan can be achieved by focusing on decision rights and information flow before any structural changes.

For instance, a global consumer goods company successfully implemented a new customer-focused strategy by designating clear accountability for profits to divisions. This approach allowed for quicker decision making and eliminated unnecessary bureaucracy without disrupting the established order.

Furthermore, a financial services firm resolved information misalignment by developing standardized back-office processes and analytical support tools, which improved profitability.

To evaluate and prioritize new ideas while maintaining order, organizations can deploy diagnostics to test organizational capacity before launching growth efforts and use new tools for clarifying trade-offs about resourcing growth bets.

Creating support structures for integrating growth projects into existing businesses can also help in maintaining order while implementing innovative ideas within an organization.

Choosing Who Makes Decisions

Successful strategy execution involves deciding who in the organization is responsible for making specific decisions. It’s important to clearly assign accountability for profits to divisional and geographic leaders. When choosing decision-makers, consider how information flows within the organization. Open, informal communication and an environment where leaders can discuss pressing issues can improve decision-making.

Implementing strategies for collaboration and cross-company communication ensures decision-makers are well-informed and aligned with the strategy. This can include regular performance reports and quarterly meetings. Improving communication and decision rights can increase profitability and drive business growth.

How to Share Information the Right Way

Effective communication and information sharing are crucial for business growth. Here are some key principles to consider:

1. Decision rights and information flows are important. For example, a global consumer-goods company designated accountability for profits clearly to divisions to support a new strategy focused on customers.
2. Accurate information flow is essential. An insurance company improved information flow by creating a more open, informal culture. A B2B company also promoted cross-company communication in its customer-focused marketing group.
3. Organizations need to deploy diagnostics to test organizational capacity and use tools to clarify mid-manager trade-offs about resourcing growth bets.

Support structures for integrating growth projects into existing businesses are also important.

Clear communication, strong information flow, and strategies that promote alignment and cohesion are essential for the success of a big plan.

Building Skills to Actually Do the Big Plan

Get Ready for Action

Communication is important in getting everyone on board with a big plan for action. This includes clearly explaining the strategy, the rationale behind the plan, and ensuring that everyone understands their role in executing the strategy.

Aligning jobs with the big plan involves ensuring that roles, responsibilities, and goals are aligned with the strategic objectives. This may include redefining job descriptions, setting performance metrics, and providing training and resources.

To track the effectiveness of the plan and make adjustments when necessary, measuring and monitoring performance is important. This can be done through regular performance reviews, using key performance indicators to measure progress, and getting feedback from employees and stakeholders.

Creating a culture of continuous improvement and learning from both failures and successes is important for effective execution strategy in business growth.

Fix Your Strategy When You Need To

To know when their strategy needs fixing, people should check if their organization can carry out new growth strategies. This means using tests to see if the organization is ready before starting new growth plans, using tools to clarify trade-offs for managers, creating new ways to free up resources, and building support structures for new projects.

Fixing a strategy that’s not working means finding where the organization struggles to work together, leading to less overall capability. Things to think about when deciding to change a strategy are not enough resources for new growth plans and relying too much on planning, metrics, and communication.

Also, people should focus on finding the ability to carry out new growth strategies, as successful organizations can boost profits by 77% when they do this.

Pick a Software to Help Get Things Done

To be helpful, software needs features like task management, goal tracking, deadline reminders, document sharing, and collaboration.

Customizing the software for the team or organization involves options for task lists, project categories, and user permissions.

When choosing software for productivity, consider a user-friendly interface, compatibility with existing systems, scalability, customer support, and security features.

Also, look for real-time updates, customizable reporting options, and integration with other organizational tools.