#10: How to execute on a 'cool idea'

Definition of a 'cool idea': It solves a real life problem, you are able to create a solution and customers agree to spend money and/or time to acquire the solution. You can execute on cool ideas by luck, or by doing the following:

• Understanding the customer's pain points at an experiential level
  
• Learning how a customer will use the product or service
• Possessing capabilities to produce the product or service
• Providing products or services better than your competition
• Sustaining value over time by adjusting to evolving customer needs
• Making money in the process or producing value that exceeds the cost incurred to produce it
  

If you cannot execute your strategy on a 'cool idea', its not really a 'cool idea' and without the above it is an exercise in futility.

#9: Using internal surveys to fine tune strategy execution

Its not a perfect world. Don't get carried away by the metrics you get, especially if the measurement methods are approximate or if you are measuring perceptions.

The conversation is more important than the survey results. If you can't or won't talk to people, the numbers don't matter anyway.

There is always more work to do than time or resources. Get the team aligned behind the priorities to reduce friction and increase positive momentum. Find out:

• If people are complaining about the de-prioritization of their pet project, or
• If people are complaining about not being included or heard, or
  
• If they are complaining about challenges in executing on priorities

Dealing with reality becomes easier after you identify it.

#8: Avoid neutrality: take a stand

Being neutral should not be confused with being objective or rational. Being or trying to be neutral is defensive behavior and is a sign of 'risk avoidance'. This behavior is sand in the gears that are working to execute strategy.

Take a stand. Look within to find the 'stand' you are comfortable with. Be true to yourself. Put yourself out there, take calculated risks. Acknowledge you are human and therefore come to terms with your own imperfections.

Mitigate the risk of being irrelevant or destructive through collaboration and appreciation of diversity.

Strategy is executed successfully when people are not afraid to take a stand and adjust their stand based on information that improves their clarity.

#7: Einstein and Strategy Execution

As the story goes, an interviewer asked Einstein, if you could ask God only one question, what would that be? Einstein responded, "I would ask him how the universe was created. To get to where we are today is just math." (As anyone who watches the History or Science Channel knows, physicists, among others, make it their mission and passion to find out how the universe was created).

Later in the interview, Einstein changed his mind and said, "I would ask why the universe was created. That will give me the reason for my existence."

In executing strategy, knowing 'why' and knowing 'how' are both critical. Try answering these two questions next time you have to execute strategy and are stuck on a seemingly insurmountable problem.

#6: Reconciling 'action' and 'thought' in Strategy Execution

At an intellectual and philosophical level, there is no 'right' or 'wrong', no 'good' or 'bad'. Getting caught up in sorting this out results in inertia and inaction. However, the fact that people think this way is a reality that cannot be wished away and has to be dealt with.

At a more practical level, we have to act, take decisions and make things happen. Progress requires a forward movement, something achieved only by action. The inefficiencies of the real world generates friction and conflict (check out the 'The Law of Unintended Consequences').

Leadership and change management is the bridge between these concepts. Its about creating strategy, aligning culture to it (or aligning strategy to culture) and winning people's hearts and minds while winning a bigger share of the customer's wallet. Its about acknowledging differing realities and acting without compromising inner values.

Reconciling the audience's intellectual/philosophical needs with the need for action in the real world is hard work. If you know 'how', you might actually enjoy the process.

#5: The 'sweet spot' between personalization and standardization

To achieve customer delight, solutions have to be personalized. This raises costs and increases points of failure.

To achieve efficiency and lower costs, standardization and controlling variance is the key.

To execute strategy, first clarify the intent, purpose and customer outcomes. Use this to find the 'sweet spot' on the continuum between personalization and standardization. This 'sweet spot' is not a mathematical or physical 'thing', but a deep reflection of the organization culture, preferences and comfort. Therefore, get the organization aligned through education, buy-in, incentives and compliance (nix passive aggression).

Now, focus the cross hairs on the 'sweet spot' (make plans) and pull the trigger (implement). If outcomes are not achieved, find out why and start over.

#4: The evolution of best practices in executing strategy

A problem is solved. Similar problems are solved. Patterns emerge. A principle or theory is identified, proved and packaged into a 'solution' or 'methodology'. A brand emerges and is used to spread the benefits. Over time, the brand develops a cult following, mainly consisting of those who adopted the brand for reasons such as making money, differentiating themselves or other reasons nothing to do with the original problem being solved.

The 'solution' or 'methodology' is applied to problems it was not intended to solve, it is applied without understanding or coaching, users fail to adapt to boundary cases and exceptions or factor evolving realities. The brand gets a bad name and falls by the wayside.

Someone improves the original solution or methodology to overcome its weaknesses, creates a new brand and the cycle repeats.

If you are responsible for executing strategy, focus on the essence of the problem. Study best practices and methodologies but retain your focus on the problem at hand. Solving the problem here and now is sometimes all that matters. Given the impermanence of the universe, you will be lucky to evolve a 'long-term' solution. If you don't provide a short term solution, you will not be around to provide a long term solution.

#3: Walk the path

When in doubt on how to execute on the strategy, walk the path. Ask the following:

• How will the customer interact with the organization to ask for or select products or services?
• How will the different internal entities come together to fulfill promises made to the customer?

It is only by walking the path will the pain and challenges be evident, this experience leads to compelling solutions. Its one thing to conceptualize a 'use case'. Its quite another to experience it. Find creative ways to experience what the customer and internal stakeholders are experiencing. Where gaining the experience is expensive use the notion of a 'pilot', when gaining the experience is dangerous, use a 'simulator'. If its a totally new concept, be especially cautions as all experiences will be new, take baby steps.

Only those who walk the path will gain true knowledge and credibility.

#2: Meetings: where it all happens

Strategy Execution requires diverse stakeholders to interact and collaborate. All the brilliant thinking done in private is no use if your peers and stakeholders don't agree to adopt and sponsor the solution. Diversity is a good thing if you know how to control churn:

• Establish the type of meeting: provide status, brainstorm, deep dive etc. Don't mix the meeting types.

• Facilitate the meeting: step up to the task or find a neutral facilitator. I define 'facilitation' as getting the quiet folks to speak up, getting the disruptive folks to shut up, getting everyone to listen to each other and moving the conversation along.

If you think the meetings you attend are a waste of time, its time to ask yourself what you did to contribute to the mess and what you can do to help.