Will your Strategy work if you don't have Discipline?

"The people with lacked discipline can disrupt the strategy. Discipline means establishing rules. Giving enough power and accent according to the plan."

Several years ago, a young marketing manager reached out to his professor and asked for help with analysing the effects of his markets and strategy. He had always been a brilliant bachelor student and was graded high as a master student from the renowned business school. The strategy he offered implied turning the company that was selling industrial equipment from active sales to the stream of incoming client's inquiries. When the professor had to look at his strategy, he truly liked this. It was good. He couldn't make it better, but still, it had no effect. And the guy was told much hurried about this, then he asked him to tell what was happening.

He told the professor that he had joined the company just three months ago as a marketing manager. They had never had this position in the company, but the boss who was also the only owner insisted to introduce it. The newcomer needed several days to understand that the system of marketing could be improved significantly which would result in greater sales and profits. He developed a marketing strategy and got the approval, and the budget to implement this.

As far as the marketing manager expected an avalanche of incoming calls, he came to the sales managers and started explaining their new duties, but they interrupted him. Hey, who are you? I'm the marketing manager, he replied. No, no, we've been working here for years. We don't have and don't need any marketing manager. Go away and don't interfere with your activities. Do your marketing somewhere else. The guy was disappointed, but he was committed to managing the problem himself. He decided to hire specialists to respond to incoming calls.

He came to the HR manager and asked to recruit two interns for this job. Occasionally, several days later, two girls came to the interview. They had no significant working experience and no special qualifications, and that was their first full-time job. Both girls took the positions of interns.

The marketing manager brought the girls to the sales managers and said, guys, I've solved your problem. These interns are going to respond to calls. Explained to them what they should say.

He leaves the girls and leaves the department. The sales managers didn't want to take this task. They just said, girls, here are the catalogs. Read them and think about what you should answer. The situation grew even worse as there was not enough space to organize the working places for the interns in the sales department. They got desks in different parts of the companies head office, no adaptation and no intranet connection. He tried to complain to the marketing manager, but the only thing he got was that the sales manager's again, refused to cooperate. The guys decided to show the efficiency of his strategy so that everybody could see he's really a valuable team member.

All the ads and the messages of the advertising campaign contained only the phone numbers of the interns, and there was not a single hint of other contact information.

The girls felt frightened and confident, and lonely, and they had telephones in front of them.

Yes, they were talking over the phone almost all the time just reassuring and supporting each other. The advertising campaign was great. There were so many incoming calls, but it was busy all the time. And when clients could reach the company over the phone, they could not have informative answers for their questions. The strategy was brilliant. The implementation was disastrous.

The people lacked discipline and sabotaged the strategy. Discipline means establishing rules. Giving enough power and accent according to the plan.