2 greatest reasons why 90% of organizations fail to execute their strategies successfully

An excellent strategy which is not executed is useless. However, Intelli Bridge [ https://www.intellibridge.us] says that 90% of organizations across the world don’t manage to implement their strategies, while these organizations have invested a lot of resources into the formulation of the strategies. As we are interested in organizations and individuals’ success which is not the simple success but the incredible one to materialize through peak performance, this problem has alarmed us.

That’s why the 2 greatest reasons for this shocking statistic constitute an essential motive for this article, though this article will also indicate whether these reasons can be successfully handled or not. Two other questions to be addressed are “Does this problem of organizations failing to carry out their strategic plans form such a serious issue while they continue functioning as usual? Does this issue only concern organizations, or individuals both young and adult people should also take a lesson from it?”

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First greatest reason: leadership teams don’t care enough about strategies

No organization can accomplish any strategy, unless its leaders fully understand and support it. This means that leaders first need to care completely about strategies of organizations that they lead, for the strategies to eventually turn into reality. We have actually observed that any strategy is successfully carried out in an organization, because the organization’s leaders have focused on implementing it.

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Our point is supported by the Harvard Business Review [https://hbr.org] which says that organizations can’t change, if their leaders can’t change together with the organizations. “The pattern is clear,?and?diligent leaders often devote countless resources to planning out the perfect change management initiative. To raise the odds of success, however, my experience suggests the place that leaders need to begin their transformation efforts is not their organizations: it’s themselves,” states Ron Carucci, the writer of the article from which we have picked this excerpt.

This suggests that the most part of power to successfully implement any strategies lies within the organizations’ leaders. This is true, as I have also expressed it, saying that I have discovered that no strategy can be realized in an organization unless it is supported by the organization’s leaders. Even if all employees were enthused to execute a given strategy, the latter one wouldn't be realized, if the top leader doesn't support it. That's even what they will tell you, if you are studying leadership and management courses.

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Back to the issue that organizations’ failure to carry out their strategic plans emanates from the leaders not caring enough about the plans, Intelli Bridge’s August 24th 2022 article reads “For organizations that create strategic plans, a great deal of effort is spent to create a document that is rarely referenced, much less actively used to manage the business. Managers easily become too overwhelmed with the day-to-day fires to keep their eyes on the broader vision.?The plan becomes a monument to visit every couple of years rather than a tool used to intentionally and actively manage and measure success by”.

"The bottom line is strategic management is not given the same level of commitment and focus as other functions within the organization. Most organizations are dedicated to ensuring project success, but the same level of focus is not put into strategic success. One study?suggests that?85% of leadership teams spend less than one hour per month on strategy, and 50 percent spend no time at all on strategy.”

Leaders are usually very busy with day-to-day tasks as it is conspicuous in the person below. If you're a leader, you have to put your organization's strategy among vital areas you need to regularly concentrate on.

Intelli Bridge adds that, according to an article- in?The Economist- sponsored by the Project Management Institute [PMI], 61% of executives acknowledged that their firms often struggle to bridge the gap between strategy formulation and execution. "Only 17 percent of respondents said that implementation was seen as strategic in their organizations. This lack of attention to strategy leads to both poorly defined strategies and a lack of intentionality in execution. Neither a poorly defined strategy executed well, nor a great strategy poorly executed, will deliver much success.

According to the PMI study, most respondents acknowledge poor success rates in delivering their strategic objectives, and the work they do fails to align with the defined strategy.?‘Companies fail or fall short of their potential not because of bad strategies, but because of a failure to implement good ones.’”

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A more alarming situation is that this problem seems to have been simmering for years and years. In their book?The Balanced Scorecard, the authors- David Norton and Robert Kaplan- also noted that 90% of organizations failed to execute their strategies successfully.? With my research, I have found that this book was published on 1st September1996.

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In some of our articles we have indicated that time represents the 2nd most important asset of every organization and individual, after you [ your healthy mind and body]. It signifies that you are the most crucial resource you need for you to attain any ambition you set. If you used to always think about other tangible resources like money and other material possessions as the first or primary means for you to achieve your dreams, cease now to do so. Not possessing any of these materials, you can accomplish your dreams if you are healthy and strategically employ your second most vital resource.

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For example, there is an article in this newsletter where we have shown that without your own money, you can create a business, if you have a well formulated business plan. You can use the latter one, to access funding either through loans or investment from wealthy people. We will come back to this in some of our next editions, but meanwhile I know people who have now progressed in business just owing to money from their relatives or acquaintances. This denotes that you need to cultivate some virtues like honesty, for people to trust you so that they are always disposed to support you.

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I have just brought in these two primary resources [life/health and time] because the leaders are said not to spend enough time on strategy implementation. The article by Intelli Bridge suggests that 85% of leadership teams spend less than one hour per month on strategy, and that 50 percent spend no time at all on strategy. With this, you can’t really implement your strategy. Everything on which you spend most of the time, that’s what will come true. Intelli Bridge corroborates our point. “In all fairness, an organization cannot expect to be good at something it does not spend much time on. With the right guidance and framework, any organization can improve strategic planning and execution.”

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Second greatest reason: employees aren’t motivated enough to implement their employer organizations’ strategies

With employees pleased with their work environment like these ones below, you will assuredly succeed in various aspects including strategy implementation.

Employees are the most important resources that every organization has, but don’t expect that your staff will allow you to achieve any success like strategy implementation unless they are motivated. Motivated employees are those who are interested, engaged or enthused. Motivated people remain delighted with their work and various factors intervene for employees to be motivated. Business [ https://www.business.com] says "Every business owner should strive to have a highly motivated workforce. A company that focuses on motivating its employees and enhancing the employee experience will see several benefits from doing so."

"Highly motivated employees are often more productive and better performers than their unmotivated colleagues. They tend to work harder and focus on completing their tasks to the best of their abilities, which results in better output for their organizations. When you understand the reason behind an employee’s actions, you can use that insight to motivate them and ultimately improve business productivity, performance, and efficiency."

We will make specific articles on motivation and its factors in our future editions. But some of the factors being key include leadership attributes like respecting your employees and showing it to them as well as applying smart planning.

Smart planning means assuring that your staff (1) comprehends what you ask them to do- this involving your organization’s strategy, and (2) implements the right things in the right way at the right manner with the right knowledge, skills and motivation. This signifies that your staff has to apprehend your organization’s strategy as exactly as the top leader, if you wish to really successfully implement it. You should develop the strategy together with all your personnel to be involved in the execution or have to allocate time required for them to perfectly fathom the strategy.

Nonetheless, Intelli Bridge points out “Your organization probably has a strategic plan, but can everyone in your organization find it, or recite the main goals and objectives? You are not alone if you cannot. Furthermore, employees are often not part of the planning process, and the plans are not infused into everyday business. As a result,?few can tie in business objectives and growth goals to their daily work.”

“Given the rate of failure, it is easy to understand the lack of enthusiasm and commitment to the strategic management process. Strategic planning requires much effort, but it is relatively easy compared to successfully executing the strategy.?When strategic planning is just an infrequent activity performed by a select few people, plan quality suffers, and execution loses focus as the day-to-day fires take precedence. The result is wasted effort on a process that proves ineffective. Future strategic planning efforts are met with disdain, rushed through, and not seen as a valuable use of everyone’s time and energy. A vicious cycle ensues, which produces lackluster plans that, even if executed well, cannot produce desired outcomes.”

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Does this problem of organizations failing to carry out their strategic plans form such a serious issue while they continue functioning as usual?

It is true that organizations fail to carry their strategic plans out and some of them continue existing despite the failure. But there are huge losses associate with this failure. We won’t dwell on this, but John Spence’s words can help us to comprehend the problem in terms of loss. “I typically get 100 – 200 senior executives at that workshop and the consensus from all of the past classes is that most organizations execute about 10–15% of their strategy. WOW, if that number is accurate (and unfortunately I believe it is) – and YOUR organization is in that range — think of the lost revenues, profits, and market share.

The numbers are potentially massive and should be a major wake-up call that this is a serious issue and a HUGE opportunity. Imagine what would happen if you could instill a strong culture of disciplined execution across your entire organization. The rewards would be significant to say the least,” said Spence in 2012.

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Spence said in 2010 that he had spent seven years, teaching a class at the Wharton School of Business on the topic of “Strategic Thinking.” One of the critical aspects of that program includes understanding that ‘having the best strategy in the world is useless if you cannot effectively execute it!’

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Does this issue only concern organizations, or individuals both young and adult people are also concerned?”

The simple but great answer is “a colossally Big Yes.” We won’t take much time on this, but every person and every organization is required to apply advice contained in the article for them to successfully execute their strategy. For instance, a secondary education level learner can adopt some measures or a strategy for him/her to succeed immensely at school. For him/her to implement the strategy, s/he must first feel motivated to implement it and s/he has to always ruminate it, particularly identifying ways which can permit them to implement it correctly.

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I hope that you have already comprehended that the 2 greatest reasons, causing organizations to fail to implement their strategies, can be handled. It just demands applying the advice. It’s also noteworthy to note that a strategy means a course of action, a method or simply activities which will allow you to accomplish any goal or dream.

By Jean Baptiste Ndabananiye-Media, Empowerment& MBA.

ADEPE Deputy-Programs Manager, with a demonstrated history/experience of involvement in women’s empowerment, project/program management, peace-building/conflict transformation, training, public awareness campaigns, governance and budget transparency, advocacy, documentation, the broadcast media industry, and community justice, among others.

He is skilled in English and French, Project& Program Management, Media Production, Peace-building, Leadership, Advocacy, and Kinyarwanda- English-French Translation, among others. Strong management, media and communication professional with a Bachelor's and Master's focused in Journalism& Communication and MBA-Project Management respectively from University of Rwanda and Mount Kenya University.