Executing Your Strategy: How to Break It Down and Get It Done
by Mark Morgan, Raymond Elliot Levitt, William Malek
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mark Morgan, Raymond Elliot Levitt, William MalekEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-01-07
ISBN: 1591399564
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Book Reviews of Executing Your Strategy: How to Break It Down and Get It Done
Book Review: Terrible!
Summary: 1 Stars
It's hard to get positive about a management book that begins with a ridiculous quote: "There may be a thousand little choices in a day. All of them count." Ever hear of Pareto's Law?
The first paragraph then tells us that "The spectacular flameouts of Carly Fiorina at HP, John Akers at IBM, John Sculley at Apple, and Pehr Gyllenhammar at Volvo are merely a few high-profile examples among thousands of CEOs whose strategies fail every year because of poor execution."
But it's just not true. Gyllenhammar failed because his strategy (make factory jobs less repetitious, and more interesting) created higher costs and lower quality - especially vs. the Toyota Production System. Carly Fiorina failed partly because of her abrasive personality, poor focus (her management meetings were dreaded), and lack of a quantitative approach, but mostly because her focus on creating a single sales force created poor performance, reduced accountability, and high costs; similarly, keeping the PC and printer units together allowed the latter to cover up the former's weaknesses. John Akers made three enormous strategic errors - failing to see the future in manufacturing PCs (allowing Intel to create a commodity market that IBM was unable to add significant value to), allowing Microsoft to take over the market for PC software, and not moving to solidify IBM as an overall problem-solver instead of hardware seller. Finally, John Sculley wanted to destroy Apple's competitive advantage (its easier-to-use software and uniqueness) and become a commodity PC producer selling to large corporations.
Summarizing, "Executing Strategy" makes two unrecoverable blunders in the first half-page, goes on to conclude that "something like 90% of companies consistently fail to execute strategies effectively," and then focuses the next 260 pages on good execution (extremely likely, given its flaunting of Pareto's insights) of what are highly likely to be flawed strategies.
Readers would be much better served reading material that guides deciding what business their company is in (Drucker), determining the relative roles of low costs and high quality, fast new product development (possibly each has a role in differing areas of the company), fast operational change, and how to establish a sustainable competitive advantage.
Summary of Executing Your Strategy: How to Break It Down and Get It Done
Why do businesses consistently fail to execute their competitive strategies? Because leaders don't identify and invest in the full range of projects and programs required to align the organization with its strategy. Moreover, even when strategy makers do break their plans down into doable chunks, they seldom work with project leaders to prioritize strategic investments and assure that needed resources are applied in priority order. And they often neglect to revise the strategic portfolio to fit the demands of a dynamic environment, or to stay connected to strategic projects through completion, as new products, services, skills and capabilities are transferred into operations.In Executing Your Strategy, Mark Morgan, Raymond Levitt, and William Malek present six imperatives that enable you to do the right strategic projects--and do those projects right. And it is no accident that the six imperatives combine to create the acronym INVEST:
Ideation: Clarify and communicate Purpose, Identity and Long Range Intention
Nature: Develop alignment between Strategy, Structure and Culture based on Ideation
Vision: Create clear Goals and Metrics aligned to Strategy and guided by Ideation
Engagement: Do the right projects based on the Strategy through Portfolio management
Synthesis: Do Projects and Programs right, in alignment with Portfolio
Transition: Move the Project and Program outputs into Operations where benefit is realized
Full of intriguing company examples and practical advice, this crucial new resource shows you how to make strategy happen in your organization
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