When it comes to organizational success, leaders often use the terms “strategic planning” and “strategy execution” interchangeably. However, these are two distinct disciplines that require different skillsets and processes to get right. Conflating the two can lead to critical shortcomings that derail companies from achieving their objectives.
Strategic Planning: Defining the Destination
Strategic planning is the analytical process of determining where your organization needs to go and how it can best get there. It involves research, data analysis, dialogue, and synthesizing insights to formulate high-level goals, forecasts, and theoretical initiatives that will move you toward your long-term vision. Done well, strategic planning delivers a coherent, overarching strategy that provides clarity and direction. But as important as this roadmap is, it’s still just that – a plan. Executing that plan across every level of your business is a whole separate challenge.
Strategy Execution: Making the Journey
Putting your strategic plan into motion requires meticulous oversight, cross-functional coordination, and the consistent doing of all the projects, processes, and behaviors that will bring your high-level strategy to fruition. This is the essence of strategy execution. Unlike strategic planning, which is an inwardly focused exercise completed in defined cycles, execution happens continuously in real-time as you navigate changing circumstances, risks, and opportunities along the path you’ve charted. While planning sets the strategic destination and route, execution is the engine that provides the actual thrust and momentum to get you there. One is philosophical, the other operational. You need world-class capabilities in both disciplines to ultimately succeed.
Bridging the Gap
The challenge many leadership teams face is creating tight linkages between the outcomes of their strategic planning and their processes for executing on that plan. Disconnects between strategy and execution show up as:
- Goals and initiatives get lost in translation as they cascade down layers of the organization
- Progress and performance metrics aren’t properly tracked and made visible
- Information silos and misalignment causes teams/departments to work at cross-purposes
- It becomes impossible to pivot and reallocate resources fluidly as situations change
The glue that binds strategic planning and execution is having the right management systems, tools, and cultural practices in place. Top companies invest in integrated platforms that provide structured frameworks for interpreting strategic plans into actionable projects and workstreams. They closely monitor execution through centralized dashboards and real-time reporting. And they cultivate organizational habits of open communication, accountability, and proactive course correction.
Master strategy and execution in parallel
Whether you’re charting a new multi-year corporate roadmap or course-correcting in the midst of your current strategic cycle, it’s critical you apply intense focus and rigor to both the planning and execution disciplines. Developing elite capabilities in just one while neglecting the other will severely limit your potential. Harmonizing both unlocks the ability to turn your strategies and visions into reality.