Global Trends and Transformations in Culture, Business, and Technology by Dr. Peter Compo

Author:Dr. Peter Compo [Dr. Peter Compo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Business Expert Press
Published: 2022-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Does Execution Eat Strategy for Lunch? How About Culture?

Recall from the Introduction the CEO who says that execution eats strategy for lunch? Well, with the concept of execution laid out in this chapter, this is like stating that race car drivers eat race cars for lunch. What good is a brilliant driver if there is no car? Without a framework that includes a strategy and tactics that can be adhered to in real time—and detailed plans that are consistent with the strategy—there’s nothing to execute on. Comparing strategy and execution is apples and oranges. Sure, sometimes the drivers are the bottleneck, sometimes the cars are, but we can’t say that one is categorically more important than the other. And further, the statement, “a great strategy without execution is worthless” also misses the point, as discussed earlier. A framework with a strategy that doesn’t address the ability or willingness of the organization to execute during implementation cannot be a great strategy.

By the way, here’s another version of the CEO statement: “culture eats strategy for lunch.” As before, you need both the right strategy and the right culture. And an organization’s execution reveals a lot about its culture: fostering intellectual honesty, facing reality, avoiding seduction, acting when fallacies are apparent, and staying the course in the absence of reason not to, even if there is pain and fear in doing so. This “culture” is the deeply embedded behaviors of individuals in an organization, their internal rules of how to live daily life and how to react to the world around them.

There’s no conscious decision or big discussion each time a strong organization faces reality or acts with intensity or intellectual honesty. These disciplines are burned into the minds of the people. And when one person slips, others react. The core of culture is behavior, habitual behavior, not the results of behavior.12 And one of those habitual behaviors is execution, the quality of implementing. It’s empty to say, “they have a habit of getting results;” it is not empty to say, “they get results, repeatedly, because they have habits of low-level discipline.”

There is no guaranteed way to know what will bring good results. Executing means sticking to your truth as captured in your framework as best you can despite the demons and naysayers. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong; you need to be sure. And even then—success may have to wait.

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