This document provides advance praise for the book "Strategy Execution Heroes" from several CEOs and other executives.
1) The endorsements emphasize the importance of strategy execution and praise the book for providing practical guidance on implementation.
2) Comments note that the book focuses on the manager's role in driving execution rather than just organizational systems.
3) Executives say the book contains hands-on tips, best practices, and a refreshingly different approach to helping managers successfully implement strategies.
This document summarizes key concepts from Chapter 1 of the textbook "Strategic Management: Concepts & Cases". It discusses the three stages of the strategic management process - strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Strategy formulation involves assessing external opportunities/threats and internal strengths/weaknesses to develop long-term objectives and alternative strategies. Implementation requires setting annual objectives, policies, and allocating resources. Evaluation involves measuring and reviewing performance for corrective actions. The overall goal of strategic management is gaining and sustaining competitive advantage.
Chapter 4-Environmental Scanning and Industry Analysis (3)_1.pptxVeysel8
This document discusses environmental scanning and industry analysis for strategic management. It covers identifying external factors that influence organizations, including natural, societal, task environments, and industry analysis. Key aspects of industry analysis are the five forces model of competition - threat of new entrants, rivalry among existing firms, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers. The document also discusses using tools like STEEP analysis, industry matrices, competitive intelligence and forecasting techniques to analyze the external environment.
This document discusses tools and concepts for conducting an external strategic management audit. It outlines five broad categories of external forces - economic, social/demographic, political/legal, technological, and competitive. The document describes the process of performing an external audit, which involves gathering information, identifying opportunities and threats, prioritizing key factors, and communicating findings. It provides examples of variables to monitor within each category and emphasizes the importance of competitive intelligence programs.
chapter 8 " Implementing strategies: Marketing, Finance/Accounting, R&D, and ...Ichamutiara
This document discusses key issues in implementing strategies related to marketing, finance/accounting, research and development (R&D), and management information systems (MIS). It explains that market segmentation and product positioning are important tools for implementing strategies. It also discusses determining a business's worth, developing projected financial statements, acquiring needed capital through equity or debt, and using budgets. The document notes that R&D approaches can allow firms to be first-to-market or low-cost producers. Finally, it states that an effective MIS system can help differentiate successful firms by collecting, storing, and sharing important information.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT CH 7 : IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIES-MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS...astridatmalem
This chapter discusses strategy implementation and contrasts it with strategy formulation. Strategy implementation requires operational coordination across many individuals, focusing on efficiency. It involves altering structures, processes, and incentives to support new strategies. Annual objectives are important for allocating resources, evaluating managers, and monitoring progress. Organizational structure must match strategy to enable implementation. Restructuring changes ownership priorities while reengineering changes processes. Performance must be linked to strategies through compensation. Managing resistance to change is key to implementation. Culture influences implementation and must sometimes be modified to support new strategies. Production/operations decisions are important to consider. Employee stock ownership can motivate implementation.
This case study is a great example of how Companies uses Strategic Management as the principle while forming any strategy for their business. It also showed how Apple, Kellogg's & Skoda used strategic management priciples like aims & objectives, planning & organizing, communication, different matrixes (BCG, GE9) to overcome all the hurdles and reach new heights.
This chapter discusses how to perform an internal strategic management audit and analysis of a firm. It covers evaluating a firm's internal resources, capabilities, and functional areas. These include management, marketing, finance, production, research and development, and information systems. Tools like financial ratio analysis, value chain analysis, benchmarking and an internal factor evaluation matrix are presented to assess a firm's internal strengths and weaknesses. The objectives are to understand a firm's internal environment and identify areas for improvement to achieve competitive advantage.
This document summarizes key concepts from Chapter 1 of the textbook "Strategic Management: Concepts & Cases". It discusses the three stages of the strategic management process - strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Strategy formulation involves assessing external opportunities/threats and internal strengths/weaknesses to develop long-term objectives and alternative strategies. Implementation requires setting annual objectives, policies, and allocating resources. Evaluation involves measuring and reviewing performance for corrective actions. The overall goal of strategic management is gaining and sustaining competitive advantage.
Chapter 4-Environmental Scanning and Industry Analysis (3)_1.pptxVeysel8
This document discusses environmental scanning and industry analysis for strategic management. It covers identifying external factors that influence organizations, including natural, societal, task environments, and industry analysis. Key aspects of industry analysis are the five forces model of competition - threat of new entrants, rivalry among existing firms, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers. The document also discusses using tools like STEEP analysis, industry matrices, competitive intelligence and forecasting techniques to analyze the external environment.
This document discusses tools and concepts for conducting an external strategic management audit. It outlines five broad categories of external forces - economic, social/demographic, political/legal, technological, and competitive. The document describes the process of performing an external audit, which involves gathering information, identifying opportunities and threats, prioritizing key factors, and communicating findings. It provides examples of variables to monitor within each category and emphasizes the importance of competitive intelligence programs.
chapter 8 " Implementing strategies: Marketing, Finance/Accounting, R&D, and ...Ichamutiara
This document discusses key issues in implementing strategies related to marketing, finance/accounting, research and development (R&D), and management information systems (MIS). It explains that market segmentation and product positioning are important tools for implementing strategies. It also discusses determining a business's worth, developing projected financial statements, acquiring needed capital through equity or debt, and using budgets. The document notes that R&D approaches can allow firms to be first-to-market or low-cost producers. Finally, it states that an effective MIS system can help differentiate successful firms by collecting, storing, and sharing important information.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT CH 7 : IMPLEMENTING STRATEGIES-MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS...astridatmalem
This chapter discusses strategy implementation and contrasts it with strategy formulation. Strategy implementation requires operational coordination across many individuals, focusing on efficiency. It involves altering structures, processes, and incentives to support new strategies. Annual objectives are important for allocating resources, evaluating managers, and monitoring progress. Organizational structure must match strategy to enable implementation. Restructuring changes ownership priorities while reengineering changes processes. Performance must be linked to strategies through compensation. Managing resistance to change is key to implementation. Culture influences implementation and must sometimes be modified to support new strategies. Production/operations decisions are important to consider. Employee stock ownership can motivate implementation.
This case study is a great example of how Companies uses Strategic Management as the principle while forming any strategy for their business. It also showed how Apple, Kellogg's & Skoda used strategic management priciples like aims & objectives, planning & organizing, communication, different matrixes (BCG, GE9) to overcome all the hurdles and reach new heights.
This chapter discusses how to perform an internal strategic management audit and analysis of a firm. It covers evaluating a firm's internal resources, capabilities, and functional areas. These include management, marketing, finance, production, research and development, and information systems. Tools like financial ratio analysis, value chain analysis, benchmarking and an internal factor evaluation matrix are presented to assess a firm's internal strengths and weaknesses. The objectives are to understand a firm's internal environment and identify areas for improvement to achieve competitive advantage.
Managerial motives that are not aligned with shareholder value creation can undermine the potential benefits of diversification strategies. Proper governance and incentives are needed to ensure strategies like mergers, acquisitions, alliances and joint ventures are undertaken to generate true synergies rather than serving other managerial aims.
The document discusses the BCG matrix, a tool used to evaluate a company's portfolio of business units. It describes the emergence of portfolio matrices in the 1970s and the key components of the BCG matrix: market growth rate and relative market share. Business units are classified into four categories - Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks, and Dogs - based on their placement in the matrix. The summary applies the BCG matrix to analyze ITC's revenues across different business segments.
Strategic management involves three main stages: strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategy evaluation. In strategy formulation, companies determine their vision, mission, external opportunities and threats, internal strengths and weaknesses, long-term objectives, and alternative strategies. In strategy implementation, companies develop annual objectives, policies, and allocate resources to achieve the strategic plan. In strategy evaluation, companies conduct internal and external reviews to measure performance and make corrective actions. Effective strategic management provides benefits such as enhanced awareness of threats and improved understanding of competitors' strategies.
Michael Porter discusses key concepts in business strategy. He defines strategy as choosing a unique and valuable position involving a different set of activities from rivals. Porter outlines common flawed concepts of strategy and emphasizes that the goal is superior long-term return on investment. He describes the levels of strategy and the importance of industry and competitive analysis in strategic thinking. Porter also discusses the importance of strategic positioning, trade-offs, and achieving competitive advantage through differentiation or lower cost.
At Kearney Chessboard PowerPoint Presentation SlidesSlideTeam
This PPT deck displays sixteen slides with in depth research. Our topic oriented At Kearney Chessboard Powerpoint Presentation Slides deck is a helpful tool to plan, prepare, document and analyse the topic with a clear approach. We provide a ready to use deck with all sorts of relevant topics subtopics templates, charts and graphs, overviews, analysis templates. Outline all the important aspects without any hassle. It showcases of all kind of editable templates infographs for an inclusive and comprehensive At Kearney Chessboard Powerpoint Presentation Slides. Professionals, managers, individual and team involved in any company organization from any field can use them as per requirement.
A business plan helps to define concepts, evaluate the competition, analyze markets, determine risks and estimate financial potential. Business plans are required to obtain a small business loan.
We present this seminar regularly throughout the Hot Springs, Arkadelphia, and Nashville, AR areas. Visit asbtdc.ualr.edu/training/arkadelphia.asp for a list of our upcoming seminars near you.
The document discusses the Strategic Position and Action Evaluation (SPACE) matrix, which is a tool used to evaluate strategic plans and determine a company's strategic posture in the market. It involves assessing factors related to an organization's competitive advantage, industry strength, environmental stability, and financial strength to plot the company's position on the SPACE matrix. The position will indicate which of four strategic postures - defensive, conservative, competitive, or aggressive - the company should pursue.
SM CH 1 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ESSENTIALSShadina Shah
The document discusses strategic management, outlining its key stages and terms. It describes the strategic management process as having three main stages: strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Some key points covered include defining strategic management, discussing the need for strategic planning, explaining why some firms do not strategically plan, and comparing similarities between business and military strategy.
This document discusses strategy implementation tools including social media marketing, market segmentation, product positioning, finance and accounting issues, projected financial statements, corporate valuation methods, decisions around IPOs and cash management, and research and development. Specifically, it covers how these tools can help analyze strategies, acquire needed capital, evaluate strategic impacts, and determine a firm's value.
The document discusses various aspects of conducting an internal assessment or audit of a company. It covers evaluating the strengths and weaknesses in key functional areas like management, marketing, finance, production, research and development, and management information systems. The internal audit helps identify distinctive competencies and resources that can provide a competitive advantage. It also involves analyzing internal forces and capabilities to determine objectives, strategies and the company's mission.
Alcatel lucent planning optimization proposal presentationLewis Wang
The document proposes a supply chain planning optimization solution for ASB based on Accenture's observations of key issues. It identifies a lack of end-to-end planning and control, complex planning logics, insufficient planning staff skills, and low data quality as root causes. The proposed solution includes establishing a "control tower" function for centralized planning and execution coordination, optimizing planning logics such as using ASP to drive purchasing, enhancing planning systems and functions like capacity planning, and improving data quality and staff competencies through training. Key deliverables would define new processes, business rules, KPIs and a training plan to realize the solution.
This document outlines various marketing strategies related to market scope, market entry, product, promotion, distribution, and pricing. It provides definitions and requirements for strategies such as single market strategy, first in strategy, product positioning strategy, promotion mix strategy, exclusive distribution strategy, and skimming pricing strategy. The document is intended to serve as a guide on developing an effective high impact marketing strategy.
This document outlines the strategy formulation framework presented in Chapter 6 of the textbook. It discusses the 3 main stages of the framework: 1) The Input Stage which involves gathering internal/external data, 2) The Matching Stage which matches internal strengths/weaknesses to external opportunities/threats using tools like SWOT and SPACE matrices, and 3) The Decision Stage which uses tools like QSPM to evaluate alternative strategies. It also covers how organizational culture and politics can influence strategy choice.
The document provides an overview of strategic management concepts including:
1. Definitions of strategic management, mission, objectives, goals, and levels of strategy including corporate, business unit, and functional strategies.
2. Frameworks for analyzing the external and internal environment like PEST, Porter's 5 Forces, SWOT, and TOWS.
3. Tools for strategic analysis and choice like the BCG matrix, product life cycle, benchmarking, and gap analysis.
4. The rational process of strategic management including analysis, formulation, implementation, and review.
5. Case studies and examples are provided to illustrate strategic management techniques.
The document discusses various aspects of strategy implementation including policies, resource allocation, organizational structures, and evaluation. It provides details on:
1) How policies set boundaries and guidelines to support strategy implementation and coordination across an organization.
2) The importance of allocating resources according to strategic priorities and annual objectives.
3) Different organizational structures like functional, divisional, and matrix structures and how they facilitate strategy implementation.
4) The need to continuously evaluate strategies to determine if objectives are being met and make corrections when needed.
QUIZ strategic management concepts &cases 11th edition by Fred R. David ChapQ...حمد بوجرادة
Strategic management involves analyzing external and internal factors to formulate strategies, implement plans, and evaluate performance. It is an objective, logical process for making major decisions under uncertainty. Effective strategic management requires understanding competitors and markets, allocating resources, and gaining commitment through disciplined implementation. It provides benefits like improved performance through a cooperative approach to opportunities and problems.
The chapter discusses merger and acquisition strategies and restructuring. It covers the popularity and reasons for acquisition strategies, problems that can prevent acquisition success, attributes of effective acquisitions, different types of restructuring strategies and their short and long-term outcomes. Specifically, it addresses why firms acquire other companies, the seven main problems that can inhibit acquisition success, and defines restructuring as changing a firm's business portfolio or financial structure through actions like downsizing, divesting unrelated businesses, or leveraged buyouts.
The document provides an overview of strategic management concepts from several reference books. It discusses key topics in strategic management including environmental scanning, strategy formulation, objectives, strategies, implementation, and evaluation. Examples are provided of mission statements from companies like ONGC and Nirma. The importance of strategic flexibility and organizational learning are covered. The strategic management model involving environmental scanning, strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation is depicted.
The document discusses corporate-level strategy and diversification. It provides questions and answers about the differences between business-level and corporate-level strategy. It also discusses the various types of diversification like related, unrelated, and reasons companies pursue diversification strategies like economies of scope, market power, efficient allocation of resources. Diversified companies are often better managed with a multidivisional structure to allow for accurate performance monitoring and resource allocation between divisions.
Applied Innovative Management Strategies® is a human capital consulting firm specializing in the areas of global leadership development, virtual team effectiveness and cross cultural communications. AIM works with leaders and teams on transformational initiatives that develop leadership, produce teamwork and create excellence. At AIM Strategies® we constantly strive to be at the forefront of new trends by continuously researching and developing concepts and practices within the field of Human/Organizational Development.
This document summarizes three books related to business and management.
The first book provides case studies on brand building advertising campaigns created by an Indian advertising agency. The second book aims to help middle managers prepare for future leadership roles by focusing on practical skills over complex theories. The third book is a collection of success stories and principles from various high-profile authors.
Managerial motives that are not aligned with shareholder value creation can undermine the potential benefits of diversification strategies. Proper governance and incentives are needed to ensure strategies like mergers, acquisitions, alliances and joint ventures are undertaken to generate true synergies rather than serving other managerial aims.
The document discusses the BCG matrix, a tool used to evaluate a company's portfolio of business units. It describes the emergence of portfolio matrices in the 1970s and the key components of the BCG matrix: market growth rate and relative market share. Business units are classified into four categories - Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks, and Dogs - based on their placement in the matrix. The summary applies the BCG matrix to analyze ITC's revenues across different business segments.
Strategic management involves three main stages: strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategy evaluation. In strategy formulation, companies determine their vision, mission, external opportunities and threats, internal strengths and weaknesses, long-term objectives, and alternative strategies. In strategy implementation, companies develop annual objectives, policies, and allocate resources to achieve the strategic plan. In strategy evaluation, companies conduct internal and external reviews to measure performance and make corrective actions. Effective strategic management provides benefits such as enhanced awareness of threats and improved understanding of competitors' strategies.
Michael Porter discusses key concepts in business strategy. He defines strategy as choosing a unique and valuable position involving a different set of activities from rivals. Porter outlines common flawed concepts of strategy and emphasizes that the goal is superior long-term return on investment. He describes the levels of strategy and the importance of industry and competitive analysis in strategic thinking. Porter also discusses the importance of strategic positioning, trade-offs, and achieving competitive advantage through differentiation or lower cost.
At Kearney Chessboard PowerPoint Presentation SlidesSlideTeam
This PPT deck displays sixteen slides with in depth research. Our topic oriented At Kearney Chessboard Powerpoint Presentation Slides deck is a helpful tool to plan, prepare, document and analyse the topic with a clear approach. We provide a ready to use deck with all sorts of relevant topics subtopics templates, charts and graphs, overviews, analysis templates. Outline all the important aspects without any hassle. It showcases of all kind of editable templates infographs for an inclusive and comprehensive At Kearney Chessboard Powerpoint Presentation Slides. Professionals, managers, individual and team involved in any company organization from any field can use them as per requirement.
A business plan helps to define concepts, evaluate the competition, analyze markets, determine risks and estimate financial potential. Business plans are required to obtain a small business loan.
We present this seminar regularly throughout the Hot Springs, Arkadelphia, and Nashville, AR areas. Visit asbtdc.ualr.edu/training/arkadelphia.asp for a list of our upcoming seminars near you.
The document discusses the Strategic Position and Action Evaluation (SPACE) matrix, which is a tool used to evaluate strategic plans and determine a company's strategic posture in the market. It involves assessing factors related to an organization's competitive advantage, industry strength, environmental stability, and financial strength to plot the company's position on the SPACE matrix. The position will indicate which of four strategic postures - defensive, conservative, competitive, or aggressive - the company should pursue.
SM CH 1 STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ESSENTIALSShadina Shah
The document discusses strategic management, outlining its key stages and terms. It describes the strategic management process as having three main stages: strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Some key points covered include defining strategic management, discussing the need for strategic planning, explaining why some firms do not strategically plan, and comparing similarities between business and military strategy.
This document discusses strategy implementation tools including social media marketing, market segmentation, product positioning, finance and accounting issues, projected financial statements, corporate valuation methods, decisions around IPOs and cash management, and research and development. Specifically, it covers how these tools can help analyze strategies, acquire needed capital, evaluate strategic impacts, and determine a firm's value.
The document discusses various aspects of conducting an internal assessment or audit of a company. It covers evaluating the strengths and weaknesses in key functional areas like management, marketing, finance, production, research and development, and management information systems. The internal audit helps identify distinctive competencies and resources that can provide a competitive advantage. It also involves analyzing internal forces and capabilities to determine objectives, strategies and the company's mission.
Alcatel lucent planning optimization proposal presentationLewis Wang
The document proposes a supply chain planning optimization solution for ASB based on Accenture's observations of key issues. It identifies a lack of end-to-end planning and control, complex planning logics, insufficient planning staff skills, and low data quality as root causes. The proposed solution includes establishing a "control tower" function for centralized planning and execution coordination, optimizing planning logics such as using ASP to drive purchasing, enhancing planning systems and functions like capacity planning, and improving data quality and staff competencies through training. Key deliverables would define new processes, business rules, KPIs and a training plan to realize the solution.
This document outlines various marketing strategies related to market scope, market entry, product, promotion, distribution, and pricing. It provides definitions and requirements for strategies such as single market strategy, first in strategy, product positioning strategy, promotion mix strategy, exclusive distribution strategy, and skimming pricing strategy. The document is intended to serve as a guide on developing an effective high impact marketing strategy.
This document outlines the strategy formulation framework presented in Chapter 6 of the textbook. It discusses the 3 main stages of the framework: 1) The Input Stage which involves gathering internal/external data, 2) The Matching Stage which matches internal strengths/weaknesses to external opportunities/threats using tools like SWOT and SPACE matrices, and 3) The Decision Stage which uses tools like QSPM to evaluate alternative strategies. It also covers how organizational culture and politics can influence strategy choice.
The document provides an overview of strategic management concepts including:
1. Definitions of strategic management, mission, objectives, goals, and levels of strategy including corporate, business unit, and functional strategies.
2. Frameworks for analyzing the external and internal environment like PEST, Porter's 5 Forces, SWOT, and TOWS.
3. Tools for strategic analysis and choice like the BCG matrix, product life cycle, benchmarking, and gap analysis.
4. The rational process of strategic management including analysis, formulation, implementation, and review.
5. Case studies and examples are provided to illustrate strategic management techniques.
The document discusses various aspects of strategy implementation including policies, resource allocation, organizational structures, and evaluation. It provides details on:
1) How policies set boundaries and guidelines to support strategy implementation and coordination across an organization.
2) The importance of allocating resources according to strategic priorities and annual objectives.
3) Different organizational structures like functional, divisional, and matrix structures and how they facilitate strategy implementation.
4) The need to continuously evaluate strategies to determine if objectives are being met and make corrections when needed.
QUIZ strategic management concepts &cases 11th edition by Fred R. David ChapQ...حمد بوجرادة
Strategic management involves analyzing external and internal factors to formulate strategies, implement plans, and evaluate performance. It is an objective, logical process for making major decisions under uncertainty. Effective strategic management requires understanding competitors and markets, allocating resources, and gaining commitment through disciplined implementation. It provides benefits like improved performance through a cooperative approach to opportunities and problems.
The chapter discusses merger and acquisition strategies and restructuring. It covers the popularity and reasons for acquisition strategies, problems that can prevent acquisition success, attributes of effective acquisitions, different types of restructuring strategies and their short and long-term outcomes. Specifically, it addresses why firms acquire other companies, the seven main problems that can inhibit acquisition success, and defines restructuring as changing a firm's business portfolio or financial structure through actions like downsizing, divesting unrelated businesses, or leveraged buyouts.
The document provides an overview of strategic management concepts from several reference books. It discusses key topics in strategic management including environmental scanning, strategy formulation, objectives, strategies, implementation, and evaluation. Examples are provided of mission statements from companies like ONGC and Nirma. The importance of strategic flexibility and organizational learning are covered. The strategic management model involving environmental scanning, strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation is depicted.
The document discusses corporate-level strategy and diversification. It provides questions and answers about the differences between business-level and corporate-level strategy. It also discusses the various types of diversification like related, unrelated, and reasons companies pursue diversification strategies like economies of scope, market power, efficient allocation of resources. Diversified companies are often better managed with a multidivisional structure to allow for accurate performance monitoring and resource allocation between divisions.
Applied Innovative Management Strategies® is a human capital consulting firm specializing in the areas of global leadership development, virtual team effectiveness and cross cultural communications. AIM works with leaders and teams on transformational initiatives that develop leadership, produce teamwork and create excellence. At AIM Strategies® we constantly strive to be at the forefront of new trends by continuously researching and developing concepts and practices within the field of Human/Organizational Development.
This document summarizes three books related to business and management.
The first book provides case studies on brand building advertising campaigns created by an Indian advertising agency. The second book aims to help middle managers prepare for future leadership roles by focusing on practical skills over complex theories. The third book is a collection of success stories and principles from various high-profile authors.
The Team Management Profile is a management tool that provides personalized feedback to individuals and teams based on a validated questionnaire. It analyzes preferences for different work roles and team behaviors. The resulting 4,500 word report helps maximize individual and team performance to achieve business goals.
This document summarizes an executive development program called "Managing for Growth" offered by the Executive School of Business at DTU Business. The 4-month intensive program is aimed at experienced managers looking to gain new management tools and frameworks. It includes 15 days of in-class lectures and an action-learning project applying the tools to a real business case. Modules will cover topics like strategy, innovation, finance, and change management. The program is taught in English and requires a minimum of 5 years of management experience.
This document provides an overview of career development opportunities within Yokogawa's job families. It begins with an introduction from the Vice President of Human Resources and the Manager of Recruitment and Education. The document then maps out Yokogawa's 12 job families and provides details on roles within each family, including required experience and training opportunities. It also includes personal testimonials from Yokogawa employees about their career experiences. The focus is on providing employees with information to aid in career planning and professional development within the organization.
This document provides information about a management training program called "Leveraging Yourself" offered by Krauthammer.
The 4-day program is designed to help managers develop fundamental competencies to navigate complex landscapes and roles. It uses reflective and interactive exercises to impart energy and dynamism, transforming managers into exemplary leaders.
The training methodology involves self-awareness raising, applying lessons to real work contexts between sessions, and follow-up on progress. The goal is to help participants optimize their relational skills and behaviors to achieve business goals.
This document provides an overview of a series of leadership development programs presented by the Centre for Executive Education. It describes five programs that are designed to help business leaders address contemporary challenges through topics like developing a leadership legacy, leading during turbulent times, managing a multigenerational workforce, transforming the next generation of leaders, and achieving results through emotional intelligence. Each program aims to provide practical strategies and techniques for participants to improve their leadership abilities and develop personal leadership plans.
CEE 2015 Directory of Executive Briefing - Learn@Lunch Series ceeglobal
This document provides an overview of a series of leadership development programs presented by the Centre for Executive Education. It describes five programs that are designed to help business leaders address contemporary challenges through teachings on topics like developing a leadership legacy, leading during turbulent times, managing a multigenerational workforce, transforming the next generation of leaders, and achieving results through emotional intelligence. The programs utilize lectures, exercises and peer discussion to help participants strengthen their leadership skills and develop personal leadership plans.
This document promotes Kingsway Solutions, a coaching organization that offers various leadership development programs and services. It summarizes their offerings, which include individual and group coaching in areas like leadership skills, conflict resolution, marketing strategies, and life coaching. Testimonials are provided from past clients who achieved success through Kingsway's programs. The document aims to enroll leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals by highlighting the organization's industry partnerships and how their coaching approaches can help clients achieve goals and maximize their potential.
TTW BOOK_Testimonials + Early Reviews + Description_July 28 2015Peter Klein
This document provides an overview and endorsement of the book "Think To Win - Unleashing the Power of Strategic Thinking".
The summary includes:
- A description of the book and its premise of providing a simple and accessible process called "Change Your Thinking" to develop strategic thinking skills at all levels of an organization.
- Endorsements from 23 CEOs and senior executives praising the book's approach for helping companies outthink competitors and drive performance.
- Details on sample chapters and how the book uses real-world examples from leading companies to illustrate how to analyze problems and take strategic action.
The document summarizes a presentation by Jeroen De Flander given at an annual conference on March 29, 2011. The presentation focused on (1) defining strategic innovation and strategy execution, (2) identifying common problems with strategy execution, and (3) explaining why "Strategy Execution Heroes" are needed to close the gap between strategy development and implementation. It also provided insights and recommendations for improving an organization's strategy execution abilities.
The document discusses a training for CEOs and leaders on empowering women and promoting gender equality. It provides biographies of the two trainers, Ester Eomois and Leena Kivisild. The training will cover analyzing women's representation in leadership, learning from best practices in Europe, and empowering CEOs to implement gender equality policies and programs. Attendees will develop personal action plans to promote gender equality in their own organizations. An example is provided of initiatives by Saint-Gobain, a global construction company, to increase gender diversity through their diversity action plan and strategic priorities.
This document provides an overview of a series of executive briefing and learning programs presented by the Centre for Executive Education. The series focuses on developing transformational leadership skills for managing modern organizations. The programs cover topics such as leaving a leadership legacy, leading during turbulent times, managing a multigenerational workforce, developing the next generation of leaders, and achieving results through emotional intelligence. Each program aims to help participants strengthen their leadership abilities and create development plans for themselves and their organizations.
The chief executive role is a tough one to fill. From 2000 to 2013, about a quarter of the CEO departures in the Fortune 500 were involuntary. Senior executives often think about a overwhelming to do list, delivering short term and long term results, and finding and keeping the right talent. This is in addition to developing a cohesive high-performing culture, as well as inspiring and engaging employees. Given the rapid rate of disruption and emerging competitors in sectors previously protected by patents and high entry costs, developing leadership for this unpredictable environment is not only required - it is essential for survival
This month we chatted with Freek Vermeulen, Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School. He writes, consults and speaks across the world on topics such as strategies for growth, strategic innovation and making strategy
happen.
At The Middle East’s Leading Strategy Forum “STRATEGY LEADERS”, see The World’s Latest Strategy Thinking reflecting the wider strategy community that helps you build organizational agility into your strategy frameworks and ensure you are prepared to respond timely to rapidly changing market conditions.
When: 26th to 30th April 2015
Where: The Address Hotel Dubai Mall, Dubai, UAE
Contact: Sowmya on +971 4 4072730 or email sowmya.yellappa@informa.com
TAKEON! IS A PROGRAM FOR IMPROVING BUSINESS PERFORMANCE THAT GETS PEOPLE WORKING TOGETHER ON WHAT MATTERS MOST.
The results are immediate and measurable.
TakeON! resources and concepts are easily woven into existing practices.
You own it, you lead it, it’s your take on what matters to your business now.
Imagine people across your organisation coming together regularly, discussing what’s already working, what could be improved, and how they can contribute. Dozens of suggestions are generated and acted upon. The power comes not from a single silver-bullet idea, but in creating a culture of constant incremental change.
TakeON! enables these conversations at leader level or across your whole business. What’s more, it focuses them on the specific challenges that you face today. This creates quick wins that build confidence and momentum across the business.
This document summarizes a presentation on strategic business planning given by Prof. Dr. Colin Thompson. The presentation covers defining goals to produce an effective strategic plan, including distinctive capabilities, market focus, identity, people, and profit goals. It also describes the logical flow from goals to action programs. Finally, it discusses that the strategic planning process itself, from building a leadership team to implementing change, helps create an organization committed to its strategic goals.
The Cooplexity Institute is an Oxford-based organization that promotes collaboration through research and training. It focuses on developing entrepreneurship, teamwork, and distributed leadership to help organizations adapt to uncertain environments. The Institute offers customized and open certification programs that use experiential learning simulations and coaching over 10 weeks to foster attitudinal and behavioral change among individuals, teams, and leaders. The goal is to transform participants into potential agents of change within their companies.
The document discusses the importance of execution in business planning and activities. It notes that over 70% of executives fail to create and effectively execute strategic plans, and less than 15% of formulated strategies are effectively implemented. The document advocates for becoming "execution based" and provides statistics on the benefits of executive coaching, such as improved productivity, relationships, and bottom-line profitability. It recommends that business leaders consider hiring an executive coach as one of the "best practices" used by the 9% of most profitable companies. The document promotes the services of the Executive Peer Forum for peer advisory groups, in-house forums, and individual executive coaching.
Similar to Strategy Execution Heroes Intro Ch1 Ch5 (20)
Strategy Execution Master Class by Jeroen De Flander Jeroen De Flander
This document advertises a two-day master class on strategy execution led by Jeroen De Flander, author of books on strategy execution. The master class will cover frameworks, tools and best practices for developing, communicating, implementing and measuring an organizational strategy. It is aimed at senior executives, strategists, project leaders and consultants. Attendees will learn how to evaluate strategic plans, engage stakeholders, cascade strategies into objectives and projects, create habits to drive change, and motivate teams to achieve goals. The class involves lectures, workshops and networking and participants will receive certificates and access to strategy execution resources. It will take place on February 10-11, 2022 in Brussels, Belgium.
A lot of what we believe about greatness just isn’t so. Hundreds of scientific studies uncover a new, more accurate view of exceptional performance and underlying drivers.
Greatness isn’t born, it’s grown. The problem is that most of us haven’t caught up yet with this knowledge and still operate from wrong assumptions. This e-book hopes to change that. Enjoy!
Strategy Execution Master Class by Jeroen De Flander 2019 Jeroen De Flander
Strategy Execution Master Class brochure 2019. This is an executive education program with certification. The course is given by Prof. Jeroen De Flander. Content: latest thinking on strategy and strategy execution.
Strategy Execution Training 2018: Strategy Execution Master Class Course by J...Jeroen De Flander
Boost your strategy execution skills with this advanced Strategy Execution Course. This MC covers the strategy execution framework in depth and offers practical tips to execute strategies. 4000+ students have taken the course so far.
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Strategy Execution Heroes Intro Ch1 Ch5
1. Advance praise
“Our world is facing uncertainties never seen before. Designing winning
strategies, as tough as it can be, is only part of the challenge facing senior
management. The most difficult part is to continuously translate our
strategy into superior performance at all levels of our organisations.
That’s what this book is all about: tips and tricks to get things done”
Gérard Mestrallet | CEO | GDF SUEZ
“This book absolutely nails the three things every manager needs to know
about strategy – execution, execution, execution!”
Bill Saubert | Regional Business Leader Australia/New Zealand | MasterCard
Advisors
“Strategy Execution Heroes is a wonderfully written and well-organised book
with a clear commonsense approach to strategy implementation. It is a
must-read for any manager regardless of position or years of experience”
Michael Benavente | Managing Director Watches | Gucci
“Organisations have become very aware that much great strategy is lost
before it’s turned into performance, mainly as a result of poor execution
skills. This book is a significant step towards addressing that gap: it takes
strategy to the manager level, providing practical everyday recipes to
make sure that the ‘big picture’ does not remain a boardroom abstraction”
Bruno Lanvin | Executive Director, eLab | INSEAD
“Strategy Execution Heroes provides leaders with a practical strategy execu-
tion how-to guide which includes a brilliant summary of Jeroen’s personal
experiences combined with an extensive collection of best practices from
leading experts in this field”
Martin Jensen | Head of North America LTE Services | Nokia Siemens Networks
“Strategy Execution Heroes is a refreshingly different approach to strategy
implementation. In an extremely pragmatic and actionable way, it puts
managers and their individual roles at the centre of the execution path-
way rather than the organisation and its systems. Well worth reading!”
Michel Hofland | Finance Director | L’Oreal
2. “Strategy is a fascinating field, but time and time again we see brilliant strate-
gies fall down due to poor execution. Strategy Execution Heroes really hits
the spot by showing what can be done to drive successful execution. I highly
recommend this book to strategists and business leaders striving for maxi-
mum impact”
Bart Sweerman | Senior Director Internet Business Solutions Group | Cisco
“Even the best strategy is worthless if you are unable to get it implemented.
Execution is key and Strategy Execution Heroes explains how to do it”
Matthieu Crépey | Former Retail Director | L’Occitane
“This book takes a refreshingly different approach to Strategy Execution. Most
importantly, it is hands-on and presents new perspectives on known prob-
lems. Inspiring input for practitioners!”
Prof. Dr Frederik Ahlemann | European Business School Germany
“Strategy Execution Heroes takes a different approach to all other books that
I have read on Strategy Execution. Most importantly, it focuses on the man-
ager and his individual role in the implementation of strategy rather than on
the organisation. A breath of fresh air!”
Thilo Kusch | CFO and Board member | Magyar Telecom
“This book is a compelling read that drives right to the heart of successful and
flawless strategy execution. Many other strategy books float in the clouds of
organizational theory, but this is what we really need – practical, specific
and hard-hitting direction and real-life advice”
Jeffrey Stephen Kehoe | Regional Head Bancassurance Asia | AXA
“Practical, structured and with proven advice; exactly what a manager needs”
Karel Van Eetvelt | Managing Director | UNIZO
“Strategy Execution Heroes helps you build the foundation to champion and com-
municate strategy within your company. And it contains great insights from
well known executives that I found immediately helpful for my organisation”
Phillip Shoemaker | Director Applications Technology | Apple
“Strategy Execution Heroes gives a pragmatic series of hands-on tips and
tricks to help implement your ideas. Not all of them fit my situation. However,
those which do are absolute breakthroughs!”
Armin Knapp | Senior Controller | Salzgitter AG
7. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeroen De Flander is a seasoned international Strategy Execution expert,
top executive coach, seminar leader and highly regarded keynote speaker.
Jeroen has helped more than 15,000 managers in 16 countries mas-
ter the necessary execution skills.
He is co-founder of the performance factory – a leading research,
training and advisory firm which is solely focused on helping individuals
and organisations increase performance through best-in-class Strategy
Execution.
For several years, he was the responsible manager worldwide of the
Balanced Scorecard product line for Arthur D. Little – a leading strategy
consulting firm.
The 50+ companies he has advised on various strategy execution
topics include Atos Worldline, AXA, Base, Bridgestone, CEMEX, the
Flemish and Belgian governments, GDFSuez, Honda, ING, Johnson &
Johnson, Komatsu and Sony.
To book Jeroen to speak at your next event or to run a strategy
execution seminar for your company, please contact him through
his website www.jeroen-de-flander.com.
VII
8. ABOUT THE EXPERTS
Strategy Execution is a vast domain that required choices to be made
about topics covered. It also meant that one person alone could not
have the expertise to cover all the topics. The following five experts have
therefore contributed to this book.
Each of them helped me in the writing process by delivering content
and challenging ideas. A summary of their experience and credentials
follows.
Dr. Peter Scott-Morgan is acknowledged as the foremost authority
on communication and change behaviour. Combining complementary
expertise in management science, sociology and information technol-
ogy, he is the best-selling author of six non-fiction books. He has taught
MBA courses at the London Business School, the Rotterdam School of
Management and the ADL School of Management at Boston College.
He is in constant demand as a speaker, consultant and teacher and has
given over 1000 speeches, presentations and workshops around the
world. His book Unwritten Rules of the Game was voted one of the top
25 business books in the year of its release.
Sir John Whitmore is regarded as the world’s best coach and founder
of performance coaching. He has written five books on sport, leadership
and coaching, of which Coaching for Performance is the best known hav-
ing sold 500,000 copies in 17 languages. Honoured with the President’s
Award by the International Coach Federation (ICF), rated the number
one business coach by The Independent newspaper and as having had
the most impact on the coaching profession by the UK Association of
Coaching, John is one of the leading figures in the international coaching
community. He is a pre-eminent thinker in leadership and organisational
change and works globally with leading multinational corporations to es-
tablish coaching management cultures and leadership programmes.
VIII
9. Volker Voigt is an acknowledged initiative management expert. He
is a well-known speaker on project events and co-author of a number
of books on the subject. For several years, Volker was Arthur D. Little’s
responsible manager for developing and applying project management
methodologies in large and complex client projects. In 2000, he found-
ed Cataligent, a leading provider of web-based enterprise project sys-
tems which today has 5,000+ users worldwide. Some of the companies
that use the software are Lufthansa, Adidas, Vattenfall, Thomas Cook,
Bertelsmann, US Postal Services, AGCO and Korea Thrunet.
Vincent Lion is an expert in strategy, innovation and technology
management with a focus on the related competences’ development.
He teaches MBA courses at Solvay Business School, United Business In-
stitutes and the University of Novi Sad in Serbia. As a management con-
sultant, he helps leading companies like KBC, GDFSuez and Belgacom
design and implement ambitious strategies and build the supporting
competence centres. His workshops on developing strategic, innova-
tive and technological competences are widely recognised as achieving
exceptional business results.
Koen Schreurs is a Strategy Execution expert who specialises in
aligning individual performance to the business strategy. As former
Managing Director of GITP Belgium – a leading HR consultancy – he
has an in-depth knowledge of individual performance management.
His background as management consultant within the Arthur D. Little
Strategy & Organisation division has provided him with the exper-
tise and experience to forge the links between individual and organi-
sational performance. He is co-founder of the performance factory
where he heads up all surveys and benchmarking projects and related
R&D efforts. His professional clients include Allianz, AstraZeneca, Bay-
er, Bridgestone, Brussels Airport, DeltaLloyd, GDFSuez, ING and the
Belgian Government.
IX
10.
11. CONTENTS AT A GLANCE
About the author VII
About the experts VIII
Superman on a ‘Strategy Rescue’ mission 1
Start your journey 5
PART 1 GET TO KNOW THE 8
I. A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 13
II. You should be in the #1 spot 33
PART 2 ACT WITHIN THE 8
III. Challenge 1: Aim: Can you reach 245? 41
IV. Challenge 2: Communicate: 121, 1210 and
12100 or more 61
V. Challenge 3: Coach: Become a 3% member 91
PART 3 ORGANISE THE 8
VI. Challenge 4: Simplify: From 100-to-1 in less
than 3 years 121
VII. Challenge 5: Initiate: How to eat an elephant
with 5 people 145
VIII. Challenge 6: Develop: Dice with 6 dots
on each side 167
Bibliography 191
Index 193
Acknowledgements 201
XI
12.
13. CONTENTS
About the author VII
About the experts VIII
Superman on a ‘Strategy Rescue’ mission 1
Start your journey 5
PART 1 GET TO KNOW THE 8
I. A new mathematical enigma:
performance 0+0=8 13
How much potential performance are
you losing? 14
What’s in a name? – Strategy Execution defined 15
The 8 – a unique Strategy Execution framework 21
The 8 – crucial building blocks 23
The extended 8 28
Strategy Execution: your next competitive advantage? 29
Performance takeaways 30
II. You should be in the #1 spot 33
Are you a strategy tourist? 34
Strategy Execution and the leadership challenge 35
The manager: a hero in a movie with many actors 36
Performance takeaways 37
XIII
14. PART 2 ACT WITHIN THE 8
III. Challenge 1: Aim: Can you reach 245? 41
What you can learn from 100 goal-setting
studies with 40,000 individuals 43
The six secret success factors for best-in-class
individual objective setting: 44
Success factor 1: Don’t break the strategy chain 45
Success factor 2: Make sure it all adds up 46
Success factor 3: Don’t be too SMART 47
Success factor 4: Don’t assume too quickly that
someone is motivated 47
Success factor 5: Focus on getting the
leadership objectives right 48
Success factor 6: Don’t let a template ruin an
important exercise 49
What your organisation can do to improve
individual goal setting 50
A view on Strategy Execution by Michael Smith,
Vice President Group Strategy and Planning,
Coca-Cola North America 53
Performance takeaways 58
IV. Challenge 2: Communicate: 121, 1210 and
12100 or more 61
Building pyramids: strategic thinking demystified 61
Boost your one-to-one communication skills 64
Become an author: 65
A few tricks of the copywriters’ trade 66
Make killer PowerPoint presentations to
communicate your strategy 67
Inspire an audience 70
Nineteen tips to improve strategy communication
in your organisation 72
XIV
15. How to use the intranet to promote your strategy
and its execution 77
A view on Strategy Execution by Shane Dempsey,
Vice President Human Resources and
Communications Europe, Novo Nordisk 82
Performance takeaways 89
V. Challenge 3: Coach: Become a 3% member 91
What every performance-oriented manager should
know about coaching 92
Grow Me: Coaching individuals with the best-known
coaching model in the world 93
Thirty tips to become a better performance coach 101
Grow Us: Coaching from a company perspective 108
Five actions to take coaching to the next level in
your organisation 109
A view on Strategy Execution by Douglas Johnson-
Poensgen, Vice President Business Development, BT 111
Performance takeaways 116
PART 3 ORGANISE THE 8
VI. Challenge 4: Simplify: From 100-to-1 in
less than 3 years 121
The nine most common performance management
process issues 122
Twenty-seven guidelines to improve the Strategy
Execution process in your organisation: 125
The first nine 126
From 10-to-18 129
From 19-to-27 133
How to write a great performance story with the
manager as the hero 136
Four frequently asked questions about
performance stories 138
XV
16. A view on Strategy Execution by Alan Maxwell, Vice
President Human Resources, Lockheed Martin 139
Performance takeaways 144
VII. Challenge 5: Initiate: How to eat an
elephant with 5 people 145
Some facts and figures about projects and
programmes 146
Why do most managers struggle with initiative
management? 147
Thirty-two tips organised according to five initiative
management fundamentals: 148
Fundamental 1: Collect, select and prioritise
the right initiatives 149
Fundamental 2: Optimise your resource
allocation and planning 151
Fundamental 3: Develop your project managers 155
Fundamental 4: World-class project and
programme management 157
Fundamental 5: Manage your strategic
initiative portfolio 159
A crucial next step, but almost always forgotten 161
A view on Strategy Execution by Jean-Francois Van
Kerckhove, Vice President Corporate Strategy, eBay 162
Performance takeaways 165
VIII. Challenge 6: Develop: Dice with 6 dots
on each side 167
Some facts and figures about skills development 169
The eight most common management
development mistakes 170
Thirty-seven tips organised according to six
management development fundamentals: 173
Fundamental 1: Define the skills you want
and how you are going to get them 174
XVI
17. Fundamental 2: Manage your development
portfolio 176
Fundamental 3: Design world-class learning
interventions 178
Fundamental 4: Execute flawlessly 181
Fundamental 5: Set development objectives 182
Fundamental 6: Measure success 183
Don’t forget your Strategy Execution process owners 184
A view on Strategy Execution by Hervé Borensztejn,
Senior Vice President Human Resources, EADS 185
Performance takeaways 189
Bibliography 191
Index 193
Acknowledgements 201
XVII
18.
19. INTRODUCTION
Superman on a
‘Strategy Rescue’
mission
S uperman, otherwise known as Clark Kent, flies into the office.
Instead of his usual red cape, he has decided to wear his three-
piece grey pinstriped Armani suit. “It just seems more appropriate” he
had thought while getting ready that morning.
Superman is reacting to a ‘failing strategy’ distress call from 53-year-
old Mike, CEO of Magnatexx, a large pharmaceutical company. It was
the 267th call he had received in the two weeks since starting his new
sideline – the ‘strategy rescue’ programme.
When he arrives at Magnatexx, Superman immediately identifies the
execution issues and takes over the role of all managers. In no time at
all, Magnatexx obtains the desired competitive advantage and perfor-
mance starts to peak. And everyone lives happily ever after.
This story seems too good to be true. And it is.
But you don’t have to be able to fly like Superman, scale walls like
Batman or become green and super strong like the Incredible Hulk to
turn a great strategy into great performance.
You need performance-driven managers who master Strategy
Execution.
Introduction 1
20. Strategy Execution is no longer ‘the gap nobody knows’, the title
of the first chapter of the best-seller Execution. Thanks to the authors
Bossidy and Charan, Strategy Execution pioneers Kaplan and Norton,
several leading articles in respected business magazines such as The
Harvard Business Review and a host of research, organisations have
become very aware that much great strategy is lost before it’s turned
into performance mainly as a result of poor execution skills.
The performance gap is known. And it’s time for companies to close it.
This book will help you get the job done. Strategy Execution Heroes
will help you to:
1. Approach Strategy Execution from a manager’s perspective.
2. Align individual and organisational performance in a simple, easy-
to-communicate, sexy Strategy Execution framework.
3. Communicate your strategy effectively.
4. Set great objectives for yourself and your team members.
5. Coach others through the implementation maze.
6. Simplify your Strategy Execution process.
7. Select, manage and deliver your strategic initiatives.
8. Set up a development platform to boost the execution skills of
others in the organisation.
9. Turn Strategy Execution into a competitive advantage.
In short, this book will help you get the execution job done. But don’t
expect complex theories or fancy words. Strategy Execution Heroes gets
right to the point and won’t waste your time. It will:
Boost your learning with 250+ practical tips revealed by senior exec-
utives from BT, Coca-Cola, Lockheed Martin, eBay and many others.
Inspire your thinking with useful insights from top experts such as
Sir John Whitmore, Dr Peter Scott-Morgan and Prof Vincent Lion.
your action plan on the right track with 27 valuable downloads.
Put
2 Strategy Execution Heroes
21. So whether you are a future manager preparing for the challenge,
a manager in the field or an experienced senior executive, get ready to
boost your execution skills. Become a Strategy Execution hero and turn
your great strategy into great performance.
Introduction 3
22.
23. INTRODUCTION
Start your
journey
D ear Reader,
You are about to start discovering Strategy Execution Heroes.
To help you get the most out of this experience, I have added some com-
ments and suggestions.
1. Download supporting material. This book contains more than
250 tips, which you will find on almost every page. And you can
download even more supporting material including self-assess-
ments, examples, extra tips, reading lists and workshop guidelines.
For your convenience, I’ve added an overview of all 27 available
downloads on page 9. The downloads themselves can be found at
www.strategy-execution-heroes.com/downloads. Your access code is
the fourth word on page 126.
Where you see a box such as this one with a in front, support-
ing material is available at the website www.strategy-execution-
heroes.com/downloads
2. Be inspired by stories from the field. Six senior executives
from different fields and industries share their visions of Strategy
Execution.
Introduction 5
24. At the end of each of the chapters in Parts 2 and 3, one of them gives
you tried and tested insights to inspire your actions.
There’s a short overview of all the senior executives involved on
page 8, along with the page references.
3. Follow your ‘learning’ logic. The first two chapters provide a gen-
eral overview. You don’t necessarily need to read them per se to un-
derstand the others – although, of course, they will help if you’re
fairly new to Strategy Execution. So feel free to start reading from
the beginning, or alternatively with the chapter that intrigues you
the most. It’s up to you.
4. Remember the 80/20 rule. This book is loaded with ideas and sug-
gestions. But not all of them will have the same impact when executed.
Be selective. Pick your battles. And direct 80 percent of your ener-
gy to those 20 percent of the ideas that you think will boost progress.
Most of the key sections have self-assessment downloads to help you
direct your focus.
5. Study alone, with a coach or a whole group. Embark on a self-study
course, involve your coach or discuss your findings with colleagues.
I have indicated where team discussions would be appropriate. For
some of them, workshop templates are available for download.
6. Embark on a learning journey. I’m delighted that you are ready to
get reading because it means you are interested in Strategy Execution,
my passion. I’m certain that the book will help you after the first read,
but in order to maximise your learning experience, you should read
it more than once. Embark on a learning journey and keep your copy
close to hand as your Strategy Execution travel guide.
7. Keep up-to-date and exchange ideas. Strategy Execution is a vast
area in constant evolution. Stay up-to-date with the latest develop-
ments, collect more tips or exchange ideas with fellow Strategy Ex-
ecution devotees. There are a number of ways to keep yourself on
top of the game:
6 Strategy Execution Heroes
25. Join Linked SE (Strategy Execution group), the official Strategy Exe-
cution group on LinkedIn, the premier professional network on the
internet. Go to www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=2325487.
Subscribe to the performance factory newsletter. Go to www.the-
performance-factory.com/register.
Write to me. I would be very interested in your Strategy Execution
tips and suggestions. You can drop me an email at jeroen@jeroen-
de-flander.com or use the contact page on my website www.jeroen-
de-flander.com/contact.
Jeroen De Flander
www.jeroen-de-flander.com
Introduction 7
26. Senior executives sharing their views of Strategy
Execution – an overview
Michael Smith 53
Vice President Group Strategy and Planning,
Coca-Cola North America
Shane Dempsey 82
Vice President Human Resources and Communications
Europe, Novo Nordisk
Douglas Johnson-Poensgen 111
Vice President Business Development, BT
Alan Maxwell 139
Vice President Human Resources, Lockheed Martin
Jean-Francois Van Kerckhove 162
Vice President Corporate Strategy, eBay
Hervé Borensztejn 185
Senior Vice President Human Resources, EADS
8 Strategy Execution Heroes
27. Overview of the 27 available downloads
1. The Strategy Execution Barometer®: research report – a summary.
2. Link your objectives with the next level up – a template.
3. Interesting leadership resources.
4. How to give effective feedback – tips.
5. The Pyramid Principle – training module.
6. A great communication model – training module.
7. Great books on writing – a list.
8. Improve your podium performance – tips.
9. Evaluate the quality of your strategy communication – a checklist.
10. Build a professional strategy communication plan – ‘how to’ guide.
11. High-quality coaching questions – examples.
12. Select the right coaching tips – a checklist.
13. Score your Strategy Execution process – self-assessment.
14. Boost your Strategy Execution process – guideline overview.
15. Boost your Strategy Execution process – workshop format.
16. Write a great performance story – an example.
17. Write a great performance story – workshop format.
18. Best-in-class initiative management – a checklist.
19. Best-in-class initiative management – workshop format.
20. Interesting project management resources.
21. How to set up a strategy office – tips.
22. Score your management development mistakes – self-assessment.
23. Create a solid development platform – a checklist.
24. Create a solid development platform – workshop format.
25. Define your future capabilities – workshop format.
26. High-quality competency dictionary – an example.
27. A Strategy Execution master class – agenda.
Downloads available at www.strategy-execution-heroes.com/downloads
Introduction 9
31. CHAPTER I
A new
mathematical enigma:
performance 0+0=8
“However beautiful the strategy,
you should occasionally look at the results”
– Sir Winston Churchill
“Don’t measure your performance by what you have
accomplished, but by what you should have
accomplished within your capabilities”
“Strategy Execution is all about realising the full
potential of your strategy – and not limiting yourself
to only 50, 60 or 70 percent”
I magine you run a removals company. And every day, of the 100 box-
es you move for your customers, you lose 60 of them. How long do
you think you would stay in business?
Or imagine you are a tennis player. And every match you play, you
hit every other ball into the net. How many matches do you think you
would win?
According to research published in The Harvard Business Review,
“Companies realise only 40-to-60 percent of their strategies’ potential
Chapter I - A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 13
32. value”. The rest is lost on the way or never makes it over the net.
The numbers don’t look great – and over the last 10 years many
companies have started to realise that it takes much more than a great
strategy to be number one in their industry. You need to turn that great
strategy into great performance.
That’s where Strategy Execution comes in. It bridges the gap be-
tween brilliant strategies and superior performance. Led by Balanced
Scorecard inventors Kaplan and Norton and best-selling authors Bossi-
dy and Charan, Strategy Execution has become a fast-growing bleep on
the radar screens of top executives.
But simply appearing on that radar is not enough to make it happen.
Each company, large or small, needs to master crucial Strategy Execu-
tion skills.
In Chapter 1 we look at where companies lose performance and
zoom in on how sound Strategy Execution can help.
How much potential performance are you losing?
So Strategy Execution is no longer the black hole that drains perfor-
mance. Organisations today are aware of the performance lost through
bad Strategy Execution.
But in order to take the next step – to close that gap – organisations
need a more detailed view on exactly where they are losing performance.
Knowing that your organisation loses between 40 and 60 percent of
its strategic potential on the execution highway between the city ‘strategy’
and the city ‘performance’, is an interesting fact but doesn’t really help
solve your problem.
Nine years ago, I started collecting detailed Strategy Execution data
as I was fascinated by the implementation black box that was costing
organisations millions.
Today, the database managed by the performance factory, is probably
one of the largest Strategy Execution databases in the world, with data
from more than 1100 companies, 29 industries and 36 countries.
On the site www.the-performance-factory.com you can download a free
14 Strategy Execution Heroes
33. summary or buy the Strategy Execution Barometer®, a detailed bench-
mark report that will compare your implementation strengths and weak-
nesses with your industry peers and the overall market.
Here are some interesting facts. Of all respondents:
– 15 percent believes that the strategy is the wrong one for their
company.
– About one-in-three – 30 percent – receives no information on how
to execute the strategy.
– Only 61 percent is convinced that the strategic initiatives are
staffed with the right people.
– As few as 27 percent believes that the strategic initiatives are being
managed correctly.
– 27 percent doesn’t receive any individual feedback.
– 17 percent indicates that performance isn’t monitored.
– 38 percent indicates that poor performers don’t face any con-
sequences.
– 18 percent is unable to explain how to translate the strategy or set
individual objectives.
– 27 percent receives no training on essential management skills.
– Only 57 percent do not question the objectivity of appraisals.
In short: the results indicate that initiative management is the weak-
est link in the execution chain, followed by strategy communication and
skills development. The complexity of the Strategy Execution process
comes in fourth place.
Performance download 1. The Strategy Execution
Barometer®: research report – a summary.
What’s in a name? Strategy Execution defined
Strategy Execution can be defined as ‘all the actions necessary to turn
your strategy into success’. But this short definition won’t help you very
much in getting a better grasp of the discipline.
Chapter I - A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 15
34. So let’s go beyond this single-line explanation and take a broader
look at Strategy Execution. Here are 12 insights:
1. Strategy Execution is a vast area with blurred borders. It in-
cludes several processes – from budgeting to evaluating individual
objectives, and involves all functional domains.
2. Strategy Execution is a discipline of its own. Making strategy
work isn’t the same as strategy making. It’s a different game with its
own rules, potential pitfalls and best practices. Four important dif-
ferentiators are:
involves everyone. From the CEO to the blue-collar worker,
It
everyone is involved in executing the strategy. Their roles might
be different, but all individuals contribute to the organisation’s
execution effort.
takes much longer. You can build a strategy in a few weeks (or
It
months at the most) but the execution can take several years. It’s
a sprint versus a marathon.
demands short- and long-term thinking. While executing, you
It
need to manage your long-term implementation plan and worry
about the nitty-gritty actions you will take tomorrow.
requires a specific skill set. A different game demands dif-
It
ferent skills. The most important strategy skill by far is ana-
lytical thinking, whereas executioners particularly benefit from
strong objective setting and people skills such as communica-
tion and coaching.
“Execution is a specific set of behaviours and techniques
that companies need to master in order to have competitive
advantage. It’s a discipline of its own”
– Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy, Execution
3. Great Strategy Execution requires a great strategy. Even if
Strategy Execution differs greatly from strategy building, it cannot
16 Strategy Execution Heroes
35. exist without it. In fact, a great execution can never compensate for
a poor strategy.
4. Strategy Execution requires your attention from the start. And
the start is the strategy formulation phase. Execution isn’t something
you worry about after you have already finished crafting your strategy.
You need to think about the implementation challenges at the
same time you design your strategy.
Here’s an overview of the five most important implementation
hazards to think about while developing your strategy. To give you
a head start, I have included for each one, the key question(s) to ask
during the strategy design phase:
The existing culture. Strategies that demand a large cultural shift
are doomed to failure as cultural change is very hard to accomplish.
Ask yourself: ‘How big is the culture change needed in order to
execute the new strategy?’ and ‘Is the required change realistic?’.
existing power structures. Each organisation has its own power
The
structures, invisible at the surface and part of the ‘unwritten rules’
within the organisation. But they do exist. And they will influence
your execution capabilities. Pose the following questions: ‘What are
the current power structures in our organisation?’ and ‘How will
they impact the implementation of the strategy we are developing?’.
ability to change. Each strategy will demand a change effort.
The
And I can tell you the effort is always bigger than you anticipate
at the start. Ask yourself: ‘How much change can our organisa-
tion handle?’.
The maturity of the execution process. Once finished, the strat-
egy will use the existing execution processes in your organi-
sation. Upgrading is possible but takes time. So ask yourself:
‘What’s the current maturity of our execution capabilities?’, ‘Is
there a need to upgrade?’ and ‘How long will the upgrade real-
istically take to accomplish?’.
The maturity of the Strategy Execution skills. Related to previ-
ous. Processes need skilled people to operate them. The questions
Chapter I - A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 17
36. to ask: ‘What’s the current maturity of the manager’s execution
skills?’, ‘Is there a need to upgrade?’ and ‘How long will the up-
grade realistically take to accomplish?’.
“Culture eats strategy for lunch, every day”
– Dick Clark, CEO, Merck
5. Strategy Execution has a strong timing sequence. You don’t do
everything at the same time. One thing happens before the other,
and the order is important.
6. Strategy Execution requests a seamless integration between
organisational and individual performance. You can look at
performance from either an organisational or an individual per-
spective. But in order to realise your strategy, a connection be-
tween both is crucial. Most will agree with this statement, but few
will actually make it happen.
“Building a visionary company requires one percent vision
and 99 percent alignment”
– Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last
7. Strategy Execution demands clear responsibilities. Strategy Ex-
ecution takes place across different organisational levels. Depending
on the size of the company, these include the overall company level,
one or more intermediate levels – usually called division, depart-
ment or team – and the individual level.
In large organisations, you can have up to 10 different par-
ties involved, including corporate functions, functional lines, re-
gional structures and countries. In addition, within each of these
structures, responsibilities are often dispersed among the depart-
ments of human resources, finance and strategy and the various
leadership teams.
18 Strategy Execution Heroes
37. Pretty easy to lose some of your strategy in this structure, wouldn’t
you say?
So in order to make it work, you need to define clear responsibili-
ties for all parties involved.
8. Strategy Execution requires horizontal alignment. Building on
the previous point, I’d like to stress the importance of a strong hori-
zontal collaboration between business and support departments.
Their relationship should go beyond the annual budget and month-
ly operational meetings.
9. Strategy Execution needs heroes. Managers are the most impor-
tant players in the execution contest. In fact, strategy remains a pa-
per exercise without managers taking the right actions and fulfilling
their roles. They contribute content, are the links between organisa-
tional levels, and act as performance role models.
And this requires the right attitude. Execution isn’t something oth-
ers should worry about. Each manager should:
– Acknowledge the importance of Strategy Execution.
– Understand what Strategy Execution is all about.
– See execution as an essential part of being a leader.
– Know how to maximise their crucial role in the whole process.
– Develop the necessary Strategy Execution skills.
On top of that, senior managers need to put the necessary pro-
cesses in place to ensure that all managers in the organisation become
execution heroes. This is a challenge in itself.
“Strategy Execution isn’t something other people should worry
about while you are doing something far more important”
10. Strategy Execution asks for measurement. In many organisa-
tions, Strategy Execution is still a black box. You throw your strategy
in one end and performance comes out the other end. But nobody
really knows what did the trick. It’s impossible to say what worked
Chapter I - A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 19
38. and what didn’t. Even worse, companies change things for the worse
because they don’t know the key elements of their execution success.
So, as with all other business activities, organisations need to mea-
sure their performance. It’s time to open the implementation box and
see what’s inside. Here’s how:
Find the strong and weak points of your execution process. If possi-
ble, compare them against your competitors. Evaluate the complete
process or zoom in on one or two steps. Do the exercise for the
organisation, one or more divisions, or start with only a small team.
Once you have gained these insights, focus your energy on
those things that matter most for the organisation. In other
words, set priorities.
Don’t forget to keep doing what you do well. Once you’ve identified
your strong points, make sure you keep them best-in-class.
Have a long-term perspective. It takes time to build capabilities. Small
organisations should count on 18 months to become best-in-class.
For a large multinational, it can take up to three years to get there.
Your measurement approach should take the long-term into account.
intermediate goals and measure your progress. While you do
Set
want a long-term measurement perspective, you also want to de-
fine and track intermediate targets.
11. Strategy Execution is a resident. Constantly changing environ-
ments, customers, competitors and employees require Strategy Exe-
cution to be an ongoing process. It should be institutionalised with-
in the organisation: a permanent activity – part of the organisation’s
culture and DNA – that is driven with persistence and discipline.
“After a business implements a strategy, competitors will react, and
the firm’s strategy will need to adapt to meet the new challenges.
There is no stopping point and no final battle. The competitive cycle
continues on perpetually. Produce and compete or perish”
– Thomas Timings Holme
20 Strategy Execution Heroes
39. 12. Strategy Execution is on its way to maturity. Robert Kaplan and
David Norton started a new management revolution in 1992 with
the introduction of their Balanced Scorecard concept.
Originally launched as a new way of measuring strategy, taking
into account other measures rather than merely the financial ones,
the Balanced Scorecard quickly became the instrument that made
managers think harder about the implementation of their strategy.
And today, more than a decade later, Strategy Execution has grown
out of its infancy and is on its way to maturity.
The 8 – a unique Strategy Execution framework
Strategy Execution or performance management is a complex process.
In fact, it’s a mix of several processes – and the ideal process picture is
different for each organisation.
But even with a different mix, each best-in-class performance manage-
ment process should include some basic building blocks. Luckily, many of
them are readily available within most organisations. They include:
– Tried and tested approaches for reviewing a strategy.
– Strategy cascade tools, the Balanced Scorecard being the best-known.
– Techniques to structure, execute and monitor strategic projects.
– A proven approach to set, monitor and evaluate individual objectives.
What is lacking however, is a simple framework to integrate and
align all of these different building blocks.
And that’s where the 8 comes in. It combines the most important
building blocks into a coherent image.
The 8 doesn’t cover all of the ins and outs of the Strategy Execution
process. It’s not supposed to. It’s not a rigid step-by-step instruction. But it
does provide a necessary, simple framework for Strategy Execution.
You can make your execution framework more complex if you pre-
fer. For the organisational cycle in particular, there are some sophisticat-
ed models around. Kaplan and Norton describe one in their latest book
The Execution Premium. You can find a second one that also includes
organisational structure impacts in Making Strategy Work by Hrebiniak.
Chapter I - A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 21
40. While I like the insights that these conceptual models provide, their
complexity makes them unsuitable as a day-to-day Strategy Execution
framework for the whole organisation. I believe a Strategy Execution
framework for all managers and staff needs to be simple, highly recogni-
sable and sexy. (Think like a marketer and make it stick.)
I’m aware that you will lose some of the nuances, but that’s a choice
you need to make. Besides, it doesn’t mean you have to over-simplify
your Strategy Execution process. You can use the 8 for communication
purposes and keep a more detailed version to be known only by those
who have to organise the process.
Not convinced yet?
Here are two ‘content’ arguments:
1. The 8 shows the importance of aligning individual and organisa-
tional performance, one of the most important things you can do
to improve your success rate.
2. The 8 gives initiative management the attention it deserves (read
‘needs’). International research from the performance factory
shows that initiative management is the single most important
execution problem that companies face. In other words, it’s the
place where most performance is lost.
So, if you look for a simple, highly recognisable Strategy Execution
framework that emphasises the link between individual and organisa-
tional performance and gives initiative management the importance it
deserves, go for the 8.
22 Strategy Execution Heroes
41. Figure 1. The 8, a unique Strategy Execution framework
Update
Organisation Level Strategy
Compare Communicate
& Learn & Cascade
Manage
initiatives
Individual Level
Evaluate Set
Performance Objectives
®
Monitor
& Coach
The 8 – crucial building blocks
Here is an overview of the different building blocks:
1. Review and update your strategy
Your strategy is the long-term action plan designed to achieve your vi-
sion. Depending on the industry you are in, it maps the road your com-
pany should take for the next 3-to-10 years. It’s designed to help you
gain the competitive advantage over your industry peers.
On a regular basis, usually annually, a company needs (and wants) to
update its strategy based on changes in its competitive environment and
on the Strategy Execution feedback from the previous cycle.
Chapter I - A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 23
42. The execution framework includes strategy updates as they take
place on a regular, recurring basis at all levels of the organisation. It
excludes the real strategy work, conducted only once every three-to-five
years at the top of an organisation.
2. Communicate
As soon as your strategy (or strategy update) is finalised and approved
by all stakeholders, you should focus on strategy communication. Trans-
parent and easy-to-understand communication creates the necessary
understanding and engagement for the new, adapted strategy.
It is essential to use all available communication platforms. One
big strategy event and a single strategy email are not nearly enough.
Use other meeting platforms, discussion groups, informal and formal
encounters, performance management sessions, intranets, websites,
screensavers, coffee rooms, noticeboards etc. to communicate the strat-
egy. You cannot over-communicate your vision and strategy!
Pay attention to the quality of your strategy communication. Senior
managers as strategy ambassadors, in particular, should be especially
careful about how they communicate. In addition to the content itself,
tone of voice and presentation skills are essential elements in transfer-
ring content and creating the necessary enthusiasm for others to pass
on the message. Make sure you don’t kill your strategy with poor-quali-
ty, uninspiring communication.
3. Cascade
When you cascade your company’s strategy, you break down the objec-
tives into smaller chunks for the next organisational level. The process
stops at the smallest unit level – often teams. In the end, the size of your
organisation will define the size of the cascade.
It is crucial to achieve macro alignment between all the objec-
tives – horizontally and vertically – in your organisation. You can
achieve better alignment by aiming for MECE – Mutually Exclusive
and Collectively Exhaustive. This simply means that everything from
the level below (strategy, initiatives, objectives, etc.) should add up
exactly to the level above, without any overlaps. This may sound logical
24 Strategy Execution Heroes
43. and easy, but practice shows that many companies have a difficult
time linking levels correctly.
Performance tip. One of the reasons companies find it hard
to get the macro alignment right is the complex matrix of
responsibilities. Strategy Execution accountabilities are often
blurred and spread across an organisation.
In large organisations, you can have up to 10 different
parties involved, including corporate functions, functional
lines, regional structures and countries. In addition, within
each of these structures, responsibilities are often dispersed
among human resources, finance, the strategy department
and the various leadership teams.
When your macro alignment doesn’t seem to be working,
start by taking a look at the complexity of the Strategy Execu-
tion accountabilities and reduce where possible.
On a micro level, you need to balance your objectives across per-
spectives. The four traditional perspectives are: financial, customer, in-
ternal processes and people. But you can always add other dimensions
as appropriate. The Balanced Scorecard is the best-known method.
In addition to the balancing act on the macro and micro levels, you
need to select the right indicators – often called Key Performance Indi-
cators or KPIs – to track the objectives and define appropriate targets.
4. Compare and learn
Your strategy is a hypothesis. It’s your best estimate of the route to suc-
cess… but it’s still an estimation.
It’s crucial to take some time at the end of a cycle to go back and
check your hypothesis, to compare your initial strategic assumptions
with what you have learnt from the reality of the Strategy Execution
cycle that is being completed. By doing this, you will put yourself
in the forefront – research shows that only 15 percent of companies
take this step.
Chapter I - A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 25
44. But at the same time, make sure that you don’t just look at your
strategy: study your Strategy Execution capability as well. All too of-
ten, we see companies jumping automatically to change their strat-
egy because they did not reach their projected performance. But,
upon examination, there is nothing wrong with their strategy. The
problem is the execution. So don’t forget to challenge your imple-
mentation capabilities as well!
This ‘compare and learn’ step will help you verify your hypothesis
(read ‘review your strategy’), update your strategy, and fine-tune your
execution efforts and capabilities accordingly.
5. Manage initiatives
Initiative management is the activity in which your dreams run up against
reality, where your strategy meets operations and where resources are add-
ed to the strategy formula. It’s one of the most difficult Strategy Execution
steps and therefore the point where implementation often goes wrong.
Initiative management is all about selecting, prioritising and execut-
ing the right strategic initiatives: those actions that will lead to the reali-
sation of your strategy.
6. Set objectives
Setting individual objectives is one of the best things you can do to improve
performance – yours, your team’s or even that of an entire organisation.
The positive impact of goal setting is one of the most widely re-
searched and scientifically validated aspects of today’s organisational
science. Two key researchers of goal setting and task motivation theory
are Edwin Locke from the University of Maryland and Gary Latham from
Toronto University.
Link all individual objectives with the overall strategy. If you don’t,
you might end up with great individual objectives … but of no use to
the organisation!
Also, focus on the way you secure agreement on the objectives. It’s
the quality of the objectives – including the link with the overall com-
pany strategy – and the acceptance of these objectives that will make
your individual objective setting a success.
26 Strategy Execution Heroes
45. 7. Monitor and coach
Regular coaching motivates people and dramatically increases their
chances of success. It also simplifies the final performance evaluation.
In fact, regular coaching is far more important than the formal review
meeting somewhere around the middle of the year.
Providing feedback in the right way – a key coaching skill – is a cru-
cial step in boosting performance.
Performance coaching is a relatively new, but rapidly growing,
knowledge field. The leading authority is Sir John Whitmore, author of
Coaching for Performance and sparring partner for Chapter 5 on coaching.
8. Evaluate performance
Most organisations conduct a formal performance evaluation at the end
of the individual performance management cycle. Ideally, the evaluation
should answer the question: ‘Are the individual performance objectives
achieved?’. Be sure you make an honest assessment. Several techniques
can help you.
Although it’s important to link performance to remuneration, per-
formance evaluation should be a separate process.
Chapter I - A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 27
46. The extended 8
Large organisations need several steps to cascade the overall strategy
to the individual level. The cascade runs down through business units,
functional lines, departments and teams.
For communication purposes, it helps to change the visual. Here’s
an example:
Figure 2. The extended 8, an example
Update
Organisation Level Strategy
Compare Communicate
& Learn & Cascade
Manage
initiatives
Divisional Level
Compare Communicate
& Learn & Cascade
Manage
initiatives
Individual Level
Evaluate Set
Performance Objectives
®
Monitor
& Coach
28 Strategy Execution Heroes
47. Strategy Execution: your next competitive advantage?
In his best-seller, Jim Collins concludes that strategy doesn’t separate
the good from the great, execution does. Research from Kaplan and
Norton indicates that companies with a formal Strategy Execution sys-
tem have a two-to-three times better chance of success as those who
don’t have such a system.
Strategy Execution is a new, emerging competitive battlefield that
starts to get more and more attention.
Are you a player in the execution game? Or merely sitting on the
sidelines?
Don’t limit yourself to your strategy alone to set yourself apart in
your industry. Bring your Strategy Execution capabilities into play and
turn them into your next competitive advantage.
Chapter I - A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 29
48. PERFORMANCE TAKEAWAYS
– Sound Strategy Execution bridges the gap between a great strategy
and great performance.
– Strategy Execution is a vast area with blurred borders; a discipline of its
own, with its proper skill set.
– In comparison to strategy making, it involves everyone, takes much
longer and requires a short- and long-term focus.
– Strategy Execution requires a great strategy to start from and lots
of management attention during the strategy formulation phase. A
company’s culture, power structure, ability to cope with change,
quality of the execution process and skills managers, all influence
the ability to execute any chosen strategy.
– A Strategy Execution framework orients managers to take the right
actions at the right time.
– The 8 is a simple, visually strong and easy-to-communicate Strategy
Execution framework that combines individual and organisational
performance.
– Thanks to pioneers like Kaplan and Norton and Charan and Bossidy,
Strategy Execution isn’t the black hole it used to be. Today, most
organisations are aware that poor Strategy Execution creates a per-
formance gap.
– So the key question is not if there is a gap but how it will be closed.
– Unfortunately, due to the complexity of this challenge, companies
continue to lose 40-to-60 percent of their strategic potential during
the execution phase.
– Organisations need to start by understanding in more detail where
the Strategy Execution process leaks performance. A benchmark
can help tremendously.
– Strategy Execution offers new chances for creating competitive
advantage. Make sure you are the first in line to fully exploit the
opportunity.
30 Strategy Execution Heroes
49. And the answer is? ‘A new mathematical enigma: performance
0+0=8’.
The title refers to individual and organisational performance alignment.
Alone, each cycle doesn’t offer the organisation any value. Connected,
they do.
“In a 4x100-metre relay race, one runner starts before the other,
but in the end it’s the sum of the four runners that
determines performance”
Chapter I - A new mathematical enigma: performance 0+0=8 31
50.
51. CHAPTER V
Challenge 3:
Coach: Become a
3% member
“The best time to make up your mind about people is never”
– Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story
I n 1999, a tall man walks into a room packed with people. He asks
‘Who wants to be coached?’. Many glance surprisedly at each other.
This isn’t what they had expected.
After a few seconds of complete silence, people respond by raising
their hands. Then the tall man starts asking a series of questions for each
person to answer in silence on paper.
The session took 40 minutes and, at the end, more than 75 percent
of the people in the room answered ‘yes’ to the question ‘Have you
been coached?’.
I was in the room that day and… one of that 75 percent. From that
moment on, I became a coaching adept. Our coach, the tall man, was
David Hemery, John’s colleague and the 1968 Olympics 400-metre hur-
dles gold medallist. If you aren’t a coaching fan yet, I hope you will be
after reading this chapter.
Strategy Execution is made up of many, MANY individual execution ef-
forts – an infinite to-do list taken up by different people at different times.
Chapter V - Challenge 3: Coach: Become a 3% member 91
52. Performance coaching helps this process by creating the necessary com-
mitment with the individuals involved to move these actions forwards. In
other words, coaching creates engagement to get things done.
This chapter provides a clear overview of the key elements of coach-
ing and gives proven tips to upgrade your coaching skills. It will also
provide you with ideas on how coaching can benefit the organisation.
What every performance-oriented manager should
know about coaching
Coaching is a relatively new field. Although Socrates launched some
of the basic principles of modern coaching some 2000 years ago, it
has only become well-known over the last two decades.
In these last 20 years, coaching has had a meteoric rise in popular-
ity. Eighty percent of UK organisations are investing in one or more
forms of coaching and the International Coaching Federation is at-
tracting record numbers each month.
To this day, there is no single agreed upon definition for coaching.
Some are straightforward, others are fancy.
My favourite coaching definition is by Tim Gallwey, John’s former
business partner and author of several best-selling books on coach-
ing in sport. It goes like this: “Coaching is unlocking a person’s po-
tential to maximise their own performance. It’s helping them to
learn rather than teaching them”.
Be careful not to mix performance coaching with counselling. Coach-
ing is work-related, proactive and focused on conscious or just below
the surface things. Counselling is a whole different ball game. It’s non-
work-related, rather reactive and concerned with the core beliefs of an
individual. You can do more harm than good by mixing them up.
In his article The Very Real Dangers of Executive Coaching (Harvard
Business Review), Steve Berglas pinpoints the risks – and unfortunately
– the practice of unschooled coaches who enter into more psychother-
apy issues with their coachee than they can competently handle.
Make sure you do not make the same mistake. If you suspect a
work-related issue has deeper origins, call in a professional with the
92 Strategy Execution Heroes
53. necessary skills. If you are on the receiving end, make sure you have a
profile that fits your needs.
Coaching is all about unlocking future potential performance rather
than evaluating and judging current performance. It’s based on the
belief that individuals want to and can do a good job. If, deep down,
you don’t believe this, coaching is probably not for you.
Performance coaching is not so much about passing on individual
performance objectives, but rather a technique to take away the bar-
riers that prevent individuals from actually taking on and delivering
against these objectives.
Coaching is also a way of managing rather than a tool to use in a
variety of situations such as planning, delegation or problem solv-
ing. It’s a different way of viewing people – a far more optimistic way
than most of us are accustomed to – and results in a different way of
treating them.
There are many coaching methods. The good ones will help you as a
coach to facilitate learning rather than to direct it. Questioning tech-
niques and active listening are your primary means to do this.
Everybody can become a coach. It’s a skill that requires only time
and effort to develop. It’s probably harder to give up instructing
than it is to learn to coach.
Most companies today invest in coaching to improve individual per-
formance. But more and more companies realise there is so much
more to gain if they can harvest the individual benefits to improve
the overall company performance.
There is no single ideal way of measuring the coaching ROI for com-
panies – although many claim to have the best.
Grow Me: Coaching individuals with the best-known
coaching model in the world
There are dozens of coaching methods out there, some better than oth-
ers. The good ones will help you as a coach to facilitate learning rather
than to direct it.
Chapter V - Challenge 3: Coach: Become a 3% member 93
54. GROW – originally conceived by Graham Alexander and further per-
fected by John – is probably the best-known and appreciated coaching
technique in the world.
The GROW model
G – Goal setting
R – Reality
O – Options
W – Will
Unlike other techniques, it is much more than a toolbox linked to
an acronym. It’s an approach, a philosophy which helps you create the
right context to help individuals transform their potential into peak per-
formance. And I believe that’s exactly the reason for its success.
It’s my objective here to outline the main points. If you would like
to know more, you should get yourself a copy of John’s book Coaching
for Performance.
The essence of good coaching: create awareness and build respon-
sibility with the performer
You can achieve limited success by diligently following the GROW road map
explained in the book. But without subscribing to the underlying coaching
philosophy however, you will fall short of what is truly possible.
The essence of good coaching is all about you, as a coach, helping
your coachee to increase awareness and take responsibility. Of course,
the process is important since it brings structure to the conversation,
but it should not be the cornerstone of your coaching. Creating aware-
ness and responsibility are.
Frame your coaching in the context of awareness and responsibility
and it will improve drastically.
Awareness: collecting high-quality relevant input
Our minds can only process a limited amount of information at the
same time. We have a mechanism in our brain that filters all incoming
94 Strategy Execution Heroes
55. signals and only those considered important come through. It would be
impossible to function without it.
This selection process takes place automatically without any con-
scious effort. You don’t have to do anything. You can however feed your
brain better input and influence the importance given to certain inputs.
By being aware – or in other words by tuning your senses and engag-
ing your brain – you are in control of the quality of input that your brain
receives and the importance it is given.
So how does this relate to coaching?
Performance coaching aims to increase performance – the output. The
output increases when there’s better input. And you improve input
through awareness.
So if you can help your coachee to increase awareness and thereby
help to collect better input, you dramatically increase the possibility of
increased output. (I will talk about responsibility – the other crucial ele-
ment needed for success – in the next section).
As a coach, you cannot tell someone to become aware. It’s up to
the coachee to direct and engage his brain through focus. By asking the
right questions however, you can facilitate this process.
Let’s do a little exercise on input quality and awareness to make it
more concrete. I will be your coach.
Here is your assignment. I would like you to have an animated, mu-
tually interesting discussion with someone about coaching and Strategy
Execution within the next three days.
To do this, you will need to identify the person and have a conversa-
tion about the coaching. The better you manage the input – in this case
the choice of the individual and the content preparation – the more
chance you will have of reaching the objective – that is, having a mutu-
ally interesting discussion with someone about coaching and Strategy
Execution in the next three days.
I could tell you to select the best possible candidate or to read
this chapter twice in order to get a good grasp of what coaching is all
about… but I will not raise your input quality and therefore will have no
impact on your success.
Chapter V - Challenge 3: Coach: Become a 3% member 95
56. In order to help you, I need to increase your awareness.
Let’s see if I can do that by asking you some questions. It would be
great if you could write the answers down.
– Who would be the five people that could be interested in know-
ing more about coaching?
– On what page do you find information about coaching that gets
you excited?
– What would be the best way to also get one or more of the five
people you identified excited?
– How do you find out what they would like to learn about coaching?
– What other chapters could help you prepare?
– In what way can you use this book to get the conversation about
coaching started?
These questions make you think and automatically engage you in
the exercise. If you have taken the time to reflect on each question, you
should have a much better idea as to who to talk to (one crucial input
element) as well as some ideas on what you want to talk about (the
other crucial input element).
So by asking you these questions, I have hopefully enabled you to
raise your awareness and facilitated the collection of better quality input
for the assignment.
One final remark: besides awareness, there’s also self-awareness. If
awareness is ‘knowing what is happening around you’, self-awareness is
‘knowing what you are experiencing at this moment’. It’s another brain
and body process that you have at your disposal to collect valuable input.
Performance tip. You might also want to explore self-coach-
ing. Sport activities are a great place to start. If you are into
tennis, skiing or golf, you could get yourself one of the series
of Tim Gallwey books, The Inner Game of…
It’s great and fun to read.
I’ve improved my skiing tremendously and picked up new
angles on coaching at the same time.
96 Strategy Execution Heroes
57. So what are you experiencing at the moment? Still thinking about
the exercise? Enthusiastic to have those discussions? Hungry (one has to
eat)? Curious to read on?
This auto-feedback – available for you at all times – helps you take
better decisions.
So take a moment to evaluate the input signals from your brain and
body, read on, continue to work on your assignment… or grab some-
thing to eat!
Responsibility: the performer’s choice to take ownership
Responsibility is the second important performance coaching concept. When
you truly accept responsibility for your thoughts and actions, you will raise
your commitment to them. And this inevitably leads to better performance.
Your performance will not improve when you are ordered or ex-
pected to be responsible – or even if you are given responsibility. You
might do the job to avoid an implied threat or punishment but your
performance is unlikely to be optimised.
So what do you require to create responsibility?
You need to have a choice. And with choice comes responsibility.
Let’s return to your assignment. Imagine for one moment that the
person you talk to doesn’t react as enthusiastically as you had hoped.
Who will you blame?
Me probably, as I asked you to take action. This illustrates where you
currently see the responsibility lying. As long as you blame someone
else, there is no real sense of ownership.
As a coach, by asking questions, I can help you with the reflection
process but the final decision is up to you. It always is, even if that
choice is to take no action.
So, to conclude, merely telling someone to be responsible for some-
thing does not make them feel responsible. That comes with choice.
Offering choice is a fantastic trigger for responsibility.
So, it’s up to you. Please decide if, and how, you want to take the
assignment further. And if you choose to do so, please let me know the
result. I would appreciate the feedback.
Chapter V - Challenge 3: Coach: Become a 3% member 97
58. Ask the right questions, in the right order and… listen to the
responses
You know now that the best way to develop and maintain the ideal state
of mind for performance is to build awareness and responsibility. They
are the two key elements that your coaching should focus on.
Asking questions – rather than telling – is the best way to mentally
engage your coachee. And as you are looking for the highest possible
engagement from your coachee, asking questions therefore becomes
your most important means of communication.
‘But what questions do I ask?’ might be the next question on your mind.
Well, your questions need to evoke awareness and responsibility
with your coachee. Random questioning will not work.
Effective questioning can be broken down into two parts: asking the
right questions and asking them in the right order. For the former, have
a look at tips in the next section. Several of them will help you to ask the
right questions. I will explain the questioning order below.
Performance download 11. High-quality coaching
questions – examples.
But before I move on to the sequencing framework for questioning,
let me point out one other crucial point.
Interact!
Yes, that’s it. Interact. Coaching is like dancing the salsa: one person
leads but the dance evolves due to the interaction between the two
dancers. This makes each dance unique, even if you always dance with
the same partner.
Coaching is the same. Each coaching session, whether formal or informal,
is unique, even if the coachee is the same. It’s all about human interaction.
So, as a coach, you should be leading the overall conversation while
expecting interaction. A good coach will follow the coachee’s chain of
thought while also monitoring how that relates to the overall subject
and coaching process.
98 Strategy Execution Heroes
59. A good coach switches off the autopilot. Be flexible and respond
to the coachee’s verbal and non-verbal communication of the coachee.
The better you are engaged, the easier it is to react.
One way to engage yourself further is to listen to yourself. Not in a
bizarre way, but by being self-aware.
In the back of your mind, ask yourself these questions: ‘How am I
reacting?’, ‘Am I judging?’, ‘Am I leaning forwards or backwards?’ or ‘Am
I trying to find a solution myself?’. This questioning will keep your mind
on the game and increase your awareness. It demands, as with all skills,
some practice to do everything simultaneously. But in the end, it will
make you a far better coach.
A sequencing framework for your questions – GROW
The GROW coaching model offers the coach a simple, yet powerful,
framework. It helps you to structure your interaction with your coachee.
When the coaching is formal, always start with the first stage, even
when you cannot precisely define the goal. You can always return to
the first stage when both of you have gained more insight from the
other stages.
When the coaching is informal, it’s usually a good idea to initially fol-
low the coachee’s lead by asking a few questions to trigger more detail,
than move into the sequence.
The conversation can start at any one of the four stages of the GROW
model. A coachee might begin by telling you about something s/he wants
to achieve (Goal), a current problem (Reality), a new idea for improving
things (Options) or by outlining an action plan (Will).
By itself, the particular order of questions will not help you to
become a great coach. Each question should aim to increase your
coachee’s awareness and responsibility. It’s the combination of con-
text and sequence, along with lots of practice, that will make you a
better coach.
G for Goal setting: define the short- and long-term goals
The most important part of the first coaching phase is to define and agree
upon one or more goals that the coachee wishes to achieve. Ideally, you
Chapter V - Challenge 3: Coach: Become a 3% member 99
60. should establish a clear goal for the coaching session itself and a long-
term performance goal.
Make sure that you and your coachee know what the objective of
your conversation is, even when you are coaching informally. It’s impor-
tant to give value and direction to any discussion.
There’s a whole chapter on individual objective setting, as it is not
only a crucial stage for performance coaching but for Strategy Execu-
tion in general. Goal setting is one of the most researched elements in
organisational science. I believe every good coach needs a solid under-
standing of the topic that goes beyond knowing what SMART stands for.
For more information, see Chapter 3.
R for Reality: explore the current situation
The most important criterion for examining the current situation is
objectivity. Most people think they are objective but in reality they
are not. Nobody is. Absolute objectivity doesn’t exist. We can only
have partial objectivity.
There are many things that can and will cloud your, and your
coachee’s objectivity including opinions, expectations, fear and preju-
dices. But the more we aim to be objective, the more we will be.
So it’s your challenge to come as close as possible to reality, by-pass-
ing as many distortions as possible. As a coach, you should help your
coachee to remove as many false assumptions as possible.
Explore the real nature of the problem by asking your coachee to
describe their perceived current reality. This is an important step. Too
often, people try to solve a problem without fully considering their
starting point – and often they are missing some of the information they
need to solve the problem effectively. All too often, as your coachee tells
you about his current Reality, the solution starts to emerge.
O for Options: identify and evaluate different action strategies
Once you and your coachee have explored the current reality, it’s time
to explore what is possible – meaning all the potential options, behav-
iour or decisions that could lead to the right solution.
Help your coachee to generate a long list. Your objective as a coach
100 Strategy Execution Heroes
61. during the Options stage should not be to find the right answer, but to help
your coachee identify as many different ideas and solutions as possible. You
don’t want any obstacles like preferences, feasibility or need for complete-
ness blocking the brainstorming process. At this point in the process, it’s
the ideation – the creative part – that provides the real value.
So, as strange as it may seem, focus on quantity rather than quality
and feasibility. It’s from this long inventory of creative possibilities that
actions will be chosen during the next stage.
W for Will: what will you do by when?
The purpose of this final phase is to transform a discussion into a deci-
sion, using the outcomes of the three previous coaching steps. Again,
you will be guiding your coachee through a series of questions.
By examining the current Reality and exploring the Options, your
coachee will now have a good idea of how s/he can achieve their goal.
That’s great, but without ownership to kick-start and drive future actions,
it has no value. So you need to help your coachee to take responsibil-
ity and commit to action. As you want to maximise chances for success,
you need to examine any potential obstacles, discuss ways of overcoming
them, agree on the resources needed and the nature of further support.
So, the fourth phase demands that the coachee takes several decisions.
Remember: the coachee takes the decision, even if that decision is to take
no action at all. The coachee always maintains choice and ownership.
Thirty tips to become a better performance coach
Now that you have learnt the art of questioning within the context of
awareness and responsibility, here are some practical coaching tips to
boost your coaching.
There is no one way of coaching all individuals in all situations. The
list below is therefore incomplete and even has some contradictory tips.
But they have all been tested and will be useful for you as a coach some-
where along your growth path.
You might want to read a section at a time, highlighting or taking
notes as you go through them.
Chapter V - Challenge 3: Coach: Become a 3% member 101
62. As your coaching evolves, so will your needs for further develop-
ment. It might therefore be a good idea to run through this list every
few months. You will see that, after some time, certain tips will hold
no mystery for you anymore and others will attract your attention and
reveal different nuances over time.
Performance download 12. Select the right coaching tips
– a checklist.
1. Ask open questions. Asking closed questions (read ‘questions with
yes/no answer’) prevents people from thinking. Asking open ques-
tions causes them to think for themselves.
2. Make your coachee think. Ask open questions that demand your
coachee to focus more than usual to give accurate answers.
Here’s an example: ‘Can you summarise in three headlines the added
value of awareness and responsibility for your coaching activities in the
future?’ rather than ‘What do you remember from the previous chapter?’.
3. Don’t be judgemental. Ask open questions that demand descrip-
tive, non-judgemental answers. This way, you avoid causing self-crit-
icism or damaging your coachee’s self-esteem.
4. Resist the Why? question. Asking why often implies criticism and trig-
gers the coachee’s analytical thinking process. And analysis (thinking)
and awareness (observing) are two different mental processes that are
virtually impossible to combine to full effect.
So aim for questions that start with words such as what, when,
who, how much and how many.
5. Keep it short. Make your coaching questions clear and unambigu-
ous. It helps when you limit yourself to one brief question. And lis-
ten for the response before launching a new question.
6. Go on a trip. A useful metaphor for the GROW model is the plan
you might make for an important journey. First, you start with a map
102 Strategy Execution Heroes
63. that helps your coachee decide where they are going (their Goal)
and establish where they currently are (their current Reality). Then
you explore various ways (the Options) of making the journey. In
the final step, establishing the Will, you ensure your coachee is com-
mitted to making the journey.
7. Go undercover. You don’t need a formal coaching session to raise
someone’s awareness and responsibility. In fact, most coaching
takes place unsolicited, with the coachee unaware of the process.
The coached individual will simply think that you were being par-
ticularly helpful and considerate. This means that every conversation
you have becomes a potential testing ground – a learning experience
– to improve your coaching skills.
8. Ask for, and be open to feedback. Everybody learns, even the
best coaches. So do ask for feedback from your coachee. Besides the
positive learning experience for you, it has the extra benefit for im-
proving the relationship. You increase the chances that your coachee
will be more open to feedback when s/he is next on the receiving
end as feedback is becoming part of the way you interact.
9. Set goals at the start with a self-evaluation form. I have men-
tioned before how important it is to begin the coaching process, for-
mal or informal, with a clear definition of what your coachee would
like to achieve. Using a self-evaluation form helps this process tre-
mendously. There are many lists on the internet, or if you can’t find
one that suits your needs, build one. With as few as 10 questions you
can offer your coachee your first added value.
10. Don’t let the good guys get away. When coaching for performance,
you aim to improve certain performance shortcomings of your coachee.
But remember, it’s not all bad all of the time. I’m sure you can find sev-
eral good, even great, behaviours that your coachee possesses.
But without the proper attention, s/he might not be aware of them,
or even worse, adds them to the list of behaviours that need to change.
Chapter V - Challenge 3: Coach: Become a 3% member 103
64. Make sure you identify those positive behaviours and help your
coachee leverage them. It’s a great way to stress the positive and help
your coachee reach goals faster by building on existing strengths at
the same time.
11. Coach only on first-hand data. When you know the coachee, you
probably have more information available. You might, for example,
have heard something from a colleague.
And I know it’s tempting to use that information, but be aware
that using it will often have a negative impact on your coaching rela-
tionship – whether the information is correct or not.
So stick to what you hear directly from your coachee.
12. Dig deeper. Ask your coachee open questions that will make him
reflect. You should be able to detect it from their body language such
as a pause before answering or a raising of the eyes.
When you ask questions solely from the normal, conscious level of
awareness, you may be helping your coachee to structure his thoughts
but you are not probing for deeper levels of awareness.
But when your coachee has to really dig deep to find the answer,
new awareness is created. And once found, the input becomes con-
scious and readily available for the coachee to use.
13. Coach or tell? Whether or not to opt for a coaching approach de-
pends on your situation at a given moment. If timing is the most
important criterion in a specific situation, such as in a crisis, doing
the job yourself or telling someone exactly what to do is probably
your best option. If quality matters most, you will get the best results
with coaching for high awareness and responsibility. If learning and
retention are crucial, coaching is again your best choice.
14. Before you start, ask yourself what you want to get out of it.
Don’t confuse or fool yourself by pretending to coach when you are
actually doing something different. If you want to teach, then go and
teach. If you want to sell, then do so. But don’t use coaching as a
104 Strategy Execution Heroes
65. means to something other than for what it is intended. It might give
you the desired outcome in the short-term but will always backfire
and create more problems at a later stage.
15. Understand what makes people tick. There is no need to com-
plete a psychology degree before you can start coaching. But as
coaching is all about human interaction, it’s useful to have a basic
understanding of what drives human behaviour.
16. Use homework. It gives your coachee more time to collect high-
quality input and creates responsibility. And it will give you more
coaching time and a solid starting base for your next session.
17. Delegate coaching. Evaluate carefully the amount of time you al-
locate to coaching. In some situations you can delegate particular
coaching jobs to others.
18. Coach the coach. When delegating a coaching job to someone else,
you are stimulating that individual to apply and build their own
coaching skills. It further enriches your own coaching practice as
you are approaching coaching from a new perspective.
Even after years of coaching, I still find it refreshing and rewarding
to coach coaches.
19. Don’t feel guilty about providing input. Just because you read
somewhere that a coach should not delve into the content, doesn’t
mean that you can’t provide some input. You just need to be careful
with your timing and delivery method.
A good time to offer your knowledge or experience is when you
recognise that the coachee has exhausted all possibilities during the
Option phase – the ‘O’ from GROW .
Ask the following question: ‘I have some more options and ideas.
Maybe you would like to hear them?’ You can style the question to
your liking, but do make sure that it’s clear to your coachee that you
are momentarily stepping out of your facilitating role.
When providing your input, make it as short as possible. Try
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