vii This book focuses on a critical management issue: Making strategy work or executing strategy effectively.
p.10 The process of execution must be dynamic and adaptive, responding to and compensating for unanticipated
events.
p.33 For an approach to be action oriented, it must emphasize variables that can be manipulated or changed.
Effective managerial action assumes that key variables are under a manager's control; without this, there is nothing to manage.
p.34 To be action oriented, a model must also be prescriptive. It must tell us what should be done,
when, why, and in what order. A model is action oriented and useful if it identifies how execution decisions should
logically be made.
p.35 A clear, focused strategy is necessary for effective execution. One cannot talk of execution without
focusing first on sound strategy formulation.
p.36 Execution is a dynamic, adaptive process, leading to organizational learning. For learning
and change to occur, feedback about performance against strategic and short-term objectives is necessary... An effective
model of execution emphasizes both action and reaction. It must be dynamic, allowing for feedback and adaptation.
p.50 Business strategy must be translated into short-term operating objectives or metrics in order
to execute strategy. To achieve strategic objectives, an organization must develop short-term, measurable objectives
that relate logically to, and are consistent with, business strategy and how the organization plans to compete.
p.56 Incentives must support the key aspects of the strategy-execution model. They must
reinforce the "right" things if execution is to succeed. Controls, in turn, must provide timely and valid feedback about organizational
performance so that change and adaptation become part and parcel of the execution effort.
p.58 the ability to manage change well is a hallmark of successful execution
p.65 It all begins with strategy.
It is impossible to discuss execution until one has something to execute.
p.67 Execution truly does begin with a good strategy.
p.86 To execute a strategy successfully, it must be translated into short-term operational metrics
that (a) are related to long-term needs, (b) can be used to assess strategic performance, and (c) help the organization achieve
long-term strategic goals.
p.87 Short-term operating objectives are vital to strategic performance if they reflect and are
integrated with long-term strategic objectives. Execution will suffer if strategic needs are not translated properly
into shorter-term metrics and communicated down the organization.
p.90 I have long argued... that strategy demands the development of specific capabilities if the strategy
is to succeed.
p.99 Long-term strategic needs of the organization must be translated into short-term operating
objectives in order to successfully execute strategy. The short term is a key to successful execution... It is necessary
to have short-term operating objectives that provide measures or metrics that can be used to evaluate execution plans and
efforts.
p.189 Good incentives are tied to strategic objectives or short-term objectives that are derived from strategy.
p.220 Incentives motivate behavior toward ends consistent with desired strategy execution
outcomes. Controls provide feedback about performance, reinforce execution methods, provide corrective mechanisms,
and facilitate organizational learning and change. Both incentives and controls are important to making strategy work.
p.225 Successful execution requires the effective management of change... The inability to manage change
effectively can destroy or seriously hamper otherwise valid and complete execution plans.
p.226 The inability to manage change is mentioned consistently as an ongoing execution problem.
Both the Wharton-Gartner and Wharton Executive Education surveys list the inability
to manage change as the number one strategy-execution problem.
p.248 The result of an unclear model of cause and effect leads logically and inexorably to yet another problem:
Learning cannot occur.
p.292 Strategy, in effect, defines how an organization positions itself to allow it to deal with
its environment effectively.
p.304 Individuals or units that create value obtain power. Results clearly count. An execution
plan must show the benefits that will accrue to the organization from effective execution for it to be taken seriously.
