Why Most Organizations Fail At Strategy Execution

Introduction
Strategy execution represents a disciplined and systematic process of directing and controlling actionable/decisive decisions and activities that make an implemented strategy work resulting in the transformation of the organization and its institutions to strengthen it, and lead to sustainable growth and improved performance. Strategy execution requires the effective interplay of cooperation between strategic management and operations management in combining deliberate and purposeful actions demanded by the intended strategy from the strategic plan, and emergent strategy - as-needed reactions to unanticipated developments and fresh competitive pressures to realize the actual strategy.

Factors Influencing Strategy Execution Success/Failure
Strategies may fail at execution for a myriad of reasons including the six (6) factors discussed below. All these factors are interdependent and their influences are non-deterministic; this typically, makes it very difficult for managers to comprehend the contribution of each of the factors to successful outcomes of strategy execution. ​Each of the factors influences execution success/failure in a different way; if an organization fails to pay proper attention to one of these factors, it can result in execution failure, therefore an organization needs a system and approach to support management in successful execution. ​

Complexity
In the context of strategy execution, complexity refers to challenges to understanding an issue due to lack of information and lack of insight into the problem domain due to:

• Uncertainty - This may derive from:

1.  lack of complete knowledge about the organization's external environment and the impact of environmental factors on the performances of potential strategies/strategic choices; e.g., launching a new innovative product into existing/new market; 
2. Doubts about how organizational values should guide the decision or choice of action.

•  Decision Complexity - This may derive from: the inter-relationship among choices. For example, the strategic decision to enter a new market will require a major allocation of resources across different parts of the organization such as marketing, finance, operations, etc. This in turn will lead to the consideration of other strategic choices associated with the primary strategic decision, resulting in cascading decisions which is a source of complexity..
• Social Complexity - This may derive from:

1. Differing Mental Models - Managers and decision makers having differing individual mental models (or mindsets) influence how people approach resolving the issues constituting a problem; how these issues relate and impact perceived implications in relation to the strategic choices open to them.
2. Cognitive conflict - Cognitive conflict among decision makers due to possible differences in the individual manager's interpretation of issues is reflected in disagreements among decision makers and/or individual managers' about the strategic choices to pursue.  

Organizations are by definition complex adaptive systems with several independent and interconnected factors that influence each other as well as the decision-making of several independent and interconnected stakeholders.

Poor Leadership Style
Poor leadership is manifested in a variety of ways, including:

1. Failure of leadership to clearly communicate the reasons for the new strategy and garner the appropriate support to create consensus
2. Failure to generate enthusiasm and motivation in order to overcome any pockets of doubt and resistance to change resulting from successful strategy execution  
3. Failure of leadership to orchestrate the processes and major initiatives
4. Failure to coordinate management and staff in properly performing their tasks to accomplish work.
5. Failure to clearly articulate and communicate the vision and mission as well as the organization's values.

Bad Strategy
A strategy may be defined variously as an approach to overcoming an obstacle; or a response to a challenge. A bad strategy is a strategy that does not define an approach/means to respond to a challenge (opportunity/threat) or solve a known problem. It reflects an organization's failure to face the problem. The strategy does not align with well diagnosed strategic issue and basic problem. A good strategy is a mixture of policy and action designed to surmount a challenge/problem.

Poor Implementation
This results in failure of strategic initiatives that define major efforts required to close identified strategic gaps so the organization can make progress towards its strategic goals. Poor implementation may result in weak strategic assets that do not close the strategic gap, and since execution takes place within the context of the implemented strategy, successful execution is unlikely.

Bad Strategic Decisions
Bad decisions result in the wrong outcomes. Bad strategic decisions are strategic decisions whose outcomes result in business failure/decline. Bad decisions may result from incomplete or short-circuited decision processes.

Strategic decisions are among the main means through which management choices are actually realized. They are difficult or expensive to reverse because they substantially alter (and irrevocably so in the short run) the relationships between the decision makers' organization and customers, competitors, etc. The decision's outcomes are usually contingent on effects - the behavior of other actors affected by the decisions and outcomes. These recursive relationships between decisions, decision outcomes, and effects on other actors' behavior make strategic decisions messier and more complex than operations decisions.

Poor Planning
This results in inefficient utilization of resources such as time and labor as well as lack of capacity to managing change. Poor planning may lead to strategy execution failure resulting from: bad or unrealistic schedules for project team members resulting in waste of time and poor time management; lack of clear definition of strategy and project objectives; lack of budgetary controls leading to misuse of funds, etc. 

Managing Strategy Execution
The actual strategy of an organization is realized through combined execution of the intended strategy - what managers have set out in advance and intend to do - as part of some important strategic plan, and as-needed reactions to unanticipated developments and fresh competitive pressures to realize the actual strategy New circumstances always emerge, whether important technological developments, rivals successful new products introductions, newly enacted government regulations and policies, etc., that create enough uncertainty about the future that makes it impossible for managers to plan every strategic action in advance and pursue their intended strategy without alteration.

Organizations need a system to support managers in influencing the effectiveness of planned actions (top-down) and as-needed adaptive reactions to unforeseen conditions ("unplanned" bottom-up strategy responses) in order to improve the likelihood of successful execution: