Studies have found that less than 10 percent  of effectively formulated strategies carry through to successful implementation.  Some 90 percent of companies consistently fail to execute strategies effectively.  One key to effective strategy execution is the fact that it results from executing the right set of strategic projects/work streams in the right way.  These numbers seem to chime with the experience and research of change expert John Kotter.

Referring to his work for the book Leading Change, Kotter explains:

“That book was based on the analysis of about one hundred efforts in organisations to produce large scale change: implementing new growth strategies, putting in new IT systems, reorganising to reduce expenses.  Incredibly, we found that in over 70 percent of the situations where substantial changes were clearly needed, either they:

• were not fully launched, or
• the change efforts failed, or
• changes were achieved but over budget, late, and with great frustration

We also found that in about 10 percent of the cases, people achieved more than would have been thought possible.  Surprisingly, at least to us, in those 10 percent a similar formula was used in virtually all instances”

Sound familiar?  What has been your experience?

As you will be well aware, execution of strategy is one of the rarest of successes in business.  Indeed, it is a well established idea that only about twenty percent of all change projects/initiatives fulfil their promise. 

Enter Gyan Papi.  It is a Bangla word which literally means “Knowledge Sinner” and refers to the idea of a person having knowledge but not acting according to that knowledge.  As David Maister puts it so well in his book ‘Strategy and the Fat Smoker’:

 “We often know what we should be doing and why – just as fat smokers know they should stop smoking and lose weight. Real strategy lies not in deciding what to do, but in devising ways to ensure we do more of what we know we should do”. 

What a timely reminder to us Gyan Papis of the world!!

“Invent best practice.”  ”Let action precede strategy.”  “Throw a whole lot of mud at the wall and see how much of it sticks.”

This is the advice of Peter Sheahan, the globally renowned expert in workplace change with a client list that reads like a prime time ad break (and all at the tender age of 28!). His book ‘Flip: How to Succeed by Turning Everything You Know on its Head’ flies refreshingly in the face of conventional thinking by highlighting the powers of counter-intuitive business strategies. ’Flip’ includes lessons on embracing change and succeeding in an ideas economy from ‘flipstars’ such as Richard Branson, Google and Nintendo.  

There are some intriguing concepts here, such as:

• Powerlessness, not power, corrupts
• Style is substance
• To get control, give it up
• Fashion is function
• Feelings are the most important facts
• The soft stuff is the hardest stuff, and the hardest to get right

But the overriding message is clear: “The only way you won’t be relevant in the future is if you keep doing exactly the same thing as you’ve done up until today.”