Disconnected Strategy and Operational Excellence - How Do You Know



You are probably not going to like this. Your first instinct will likely be to deny it's true of your business.

In the last two decades, every business I have visited, to some extent, falls short of its potential because the day-to-day operation is disconnected from the business strategy or if you prefer the leadership/management are disconnected from the day-to-day operation.

Try this exercise in any area of your business and ask this question:-

"How's it going?"

You will almost certainly hear a positive response. Your next question is:-

"How do you know?"

In response you will likely hear one or more of the following:-

• I can ask somebody
• nothing has gone wrong
• we're on target for our budget

Stick with the line of investigation, without prompting or filling in the blanks, on how is it going, right here, right now. What you will find is two key points.

1. Nobody can say exactly how it should be going right here, right now
2. There is no means of telling how it is going right here, right now

Next question:-

"What is the strategy for this area?"

You will hear some paraphrasing of the overall business strategy.

"What does that mean to you? What do you need to be doing differently to be on strategy?"

The responses are likely to be vague. Commonly you will hear "improve efficiency". But the current "efficiency" will not be known.

What we are observing here is the very real disconnection of strategy from operation. There are several very, very typical reasons for this. We will progress through them and how to overcome them.

Strength of the Strategy



Strategy Deployment vs Strategy Communication



Contextualising the Strategy for Operational Deployment (making it meaningful)



Making Sure You Know How It's Going



Being Predictable and Reliable, Whilst Massively Ambitious

Really my favourite question of all:-

"How will it go tomorrow?"

gdfgh

The Nay-Sayers (aka "Nono")