Executing Your Strategy: How to Break It Down and Get It Down

by Raymond E. Levitt, Raymond Elliot Levitt, Mark Morgan, et al.

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591399564
• ISBN13: 9781591399568
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

If you've got a strategy that need to be tweaked and then implemented, then read this book to help y

I loved this book. It discusses the essential ingredients to getting from the status quo to a new level in business. Companies need strategies to make a buck. And as time moves forward the strategies have to change in order to be able to continue to make a buck. Whether you are a founder of a startup who wants to create a dynamite business plan, or the leader of an existing business, this book will have something for you. The book is relatively simple. It only contains 6 chapters, the topics of which include: ideation, vision, nature, engagement, synthesis, and transition. If these six terms don't jump out at you while you read this review, they will after you finish the book. Many people have trouble understanding how to take a strategy and convert it into reality. That is what this book is all about. This book will help you figure out the best way to execute a strategy so you can do the the right things correctly. If you have to execute a strategy, then use this book to help you first figure what the right things you need to do are. And then use it to help you figure out how to do those things correctly. 5 stars!

Better than McKinsey--learn what you need to do on Monday morning!

Using a wide variety of useful examples from global businesses, Executing Your Strategy provides a highly usable framework for understanding those factors that influence what must be done to successfully execute your strategy. Useful questions and summaries for actions at the end of each chapter let the reader apply the concepts for their particular organization. Full disclosure: I have worked with all the authors and actually applied the strategic execution framework (SEF) developed in the book for a wide variety of clients--the best reference I can provide is that it is extremely useful in helping organizations of all types (including non-profits)actually prepare for and execute their strategy on Monday morning. It is not shelf-ware. Executing Your Strategy is worth your time and worth sharing with key leaders on your team.

Seminal contribution to organizational alignment and strategic execution

While the book is titled, "Executing the Strategy" it might more accurately be titled "Organizational Alignment" - strategy being only one, albeit the most central, of the domains of the Authors' brilliant and comprehensive Strategic Execution Framework (SEF). Readers may miss one of the more subtle but most important gifts of the book which is to recognize that most failures in strategic execution come from not managing the interfaces between the various domains of the corporate organism, defined in the SEF: Ideation (Identity, Purpose, Long-Range Intention), Vision (Strategy, Goals, Metrics), Nature( Strategy, Culture, Organizational Structure), Engagement (Strategy, Portfolio Management), Synthesis (Portfolio Management, Program Management, Project Management), and Transition (Program Management, Project Management and Operations). Theory of Constraints and Six Sigma aficionados take note: the greatest unaccounted for source of variability in organizational performance occurs at the interfaces between these SEF domains. Today, most organizations do not manage these interfaces at more than a superficial level, if at all. Further, the strategy domain directly interfaces with more areas of the corporate organism than any other: culture, structure, goals, metrics, and portfolio. It is no wonder that 70-90% of companies are consistently failing to execute strategies successfully. The book succeeds well in setting out the SEF, but don't expect guidance on how to go about setting vision or strategy or improving project or portfolio management, changing culture, or setting the right metrics. Rather, each of these domains represents large bodies of knowledge, and this book's purpose is to identify them, and define the interfaces between them. The subtitle, "How to Break it Down & Get it Done" might imply the presence of more nitty-gritty how-to's than this book sets out to provide. Another major takeaway is that the "lowly" discipline of project management will be the cornerstone of successfully executing strategy in combination with the SEF. Strategy is not just about upper management setting a bold vision in a weekend retreat and saying, "make it so". Strategic planning must account for the ripple effects through all of the organizational domains, and projects need to be chartered, resourced and managed between and within domains for the strategy to be carried off successfully. The authors provide numerous compelling real-world examples; including many from their own consulting practices to demonstrate how correct organizational alignment leads to success and misalignment leads to failure. The authors have particular experience and success with larger organizations, where the SEF particularly shines. This book is an outstanding and seminal contribution to organizational alignment and strategic execution.

EXCEPTIONALLY USEFUL AND INSIGHTFUL!

Books on strategy formulation are plentiful, but relatively few have been written on executing strategy. This book is a major contribution in this arena, providing an insightful path for moving from strategy to ongoing operations. The authors provide a useful six-part model ("strategic execution framework"). As very briefly highlighted by the authors, the six parts are: - clarifying and communicating identity, purpose, and long-term intention; - aligning strategy, culture and structure; - translating long-term intentions into goals, metrics and strategy; - engaging strategy via the project investments stream; - monitoring and continuously aligning project work with strategy; and - transferring projects to operations. A chapter is devoted to each of these aspects of the model. Reading the chapters will enable you to fully understand and appreciate its usefulness in operational context and from a leadership standpoint. A keystone is the role of project management in transforming strategic intentions into operational realities. This book is well organized, crisply written, and rich with practical content, including diagrams, tables, and rating scales to measure your organization. Overall, the authors have created a standout-achievement that will be of value to any organizational leader.

How to do the right things, right!

At last - a book that offers the tools for systematically converting strategy into action! I was first introduced to the Strategic Execution Framework (SEF) through Stanford's Advanced Project Management series two years ago. I've successfully used the the SEF to align what we develop to the corporate strategy. Now, as projects are implemented as production systems, I'm using the SEF to align operational processes to the strategy. The book provides the language and the framework to systematically diagnose and correct the execution problems we saw but didn't know how to solve. There are a lot of books on strategy formulation and project management, but very few demonstrate how effective project management is the bridge between strategy and the end-result. This is a must-read for anyone wanting to implement change! Its all about doing the right thing, right!