Rethink what’s ‘right’ for your organisation
Focusing on ‘doing things right’ without ‘doing the right things’ doesn’t lead to long-term success. It’s time to rethink what’s ‘right’ for your organisation.
The statement ‘doing the right things vs doing things right’ is more intertwined than most people realise.
Let’s think about it for a moment. If you do something ‘right’ but it’s the wrong thing to do, you’ll end up getting more of what you don’t want. Conversely, if you do the ‘right thing’ the wrong way, you’ll not get the results you want.
In this ever-changing world that we live in, companies must have the right balance between the two when it comes to executing the strategy successfully — not just to survive but to thrive.
What are the key steps to successful strategy execution?
First Step: Strategic Planning
Planning is about looking at where you are now, visualising the future and creating a strategy for how to get there. It’s all about doing the right things or having the right initiatives to continually bring value to customers.
Knowing if you’re doing the right things isn’t always straightforward — it would require a clear strategy, robust prioritisation, and continuous measurement, feedback and reviews. How you achieve these is often the difference between success and failure.
A starting point is by having all initiatives constantly aligned to the strategy, which will create a shared sense of purpose and clarity, and allow more frequent ‘review and adjust’ to optimise the return on effort.
Unlike traditional planning that is often ‘set and forget’ and disconnected from the reality, strategic planning isn’t about perfection or creating solid plans. It’s about adapting to fit changed circumstances.
Second Step: Execution
You can have a great strategy, but if it’s not well-executed, the results won’t give you what you need in the end.
Once the goals are set, doing things right is important. This doesn’t mean following steps but actively thinking about how to do it the best way to achieve the goals. You need to constantly re-evaluate whether you are doing things the right way to deliver value and not afraid to test, learn and course-correct frequently.
This needs to be embedded in the daily work of everyone. To make this a common practice, leaders must set the right context and parameters for the teams to feel informed and encouraged to make decisions. When teams are given autonomy, a shared sense of purpose, clarity and feedback, they will be more intrinsically motivated to act in the best interest of the organisation. They will be more willing to adapt to change, be flexible, and help leaders in deciding how to best meet the goals. In other words, they are more empowered to own the outcomes.
(Re)Aligning planning and execution
“Growth creates complexity, which requires simplicity .”
- Mike Krzyzewski
Large organisations find it particularly hard to execute their strategies and transform in a meaningful way. Why? MIT has found through a 5-year research that the more established organisations have been designed to deliver today’s strategy, and not designed for executing constantly changing strategy. This is why previously successful companies such as Blockbuster and Kodak failed due to their inability to be flexible, open to change and grow.
To thrive, not just survive change, companies need to do the right things the right way. This means implementing adaptive strategic planning and embracing a test-and-learn culture. Changes to people, process and technology must happen accordingly to synchronise decisions and actions across the organisation.
The truth is that change is hard, but it’s always possible.
Want to find out more about building change muscle and achieving outcomes? Visit our website at www.journeylab.io.
