Why Your Strategy Isn't Executed

Does your firm have a marketing strategy?  If so, you're pretty rare.  And if you do, it probably isn't being carried out, according to Michael E. Nagel, VP of the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative in Lincoln, MA. "Only 10% of all strategies ever get executed," he said at the Association of Legal Administrators conference in Montreal.

Here's why:

·        95% of the typical workforce does not understand the strategy.

·        60% of organizations do not link budgets to strategy.

·        70% of organizations do not link middle management incentives to strategy.

·        85% of executive teams spend less than one hour per month discussing strategy.

However, many companies have figured out the solution, including DuPont, Mobil, GTE, Canon, Siemens, Chrysler, BMW, Mellon Bank, Ricoh and Hilton.

1. Start at the top: mobilize change through executive leadership.

2. Translate change into operational terms: set targets and measure progress.

3. Align IT, HR, the finance department and the management committee to support the strategy.

4. Motivate the workforce to make strategy everybody's job.

5. Govern to make strategy a continual process, hold strategic review meetings, review performance based on supporting the strategy, put a budget behind the strategy and share the results.

I have to admit, it all sounded good, and if I were the Czar of the firm, I could issue an edict to make it so.  Or else I could hire a platoon of consultants, get everybody to read the books they wrote and get the firm leaders to understand their incredibly complex charts like this one here.

But that's for firms with a bigger budget than mine.