Harvard Business Review: The Gap Between Strategy and Execution

Coming up with a winning strategy is hard enough; but implementing it may be even tougher. And the advice out there is often vague or conflicting. Should you empower front-line employees? Reorganize? Delayer? Focus on culture?

This HBR Insight Center, sponsored by Brightline, cuts through the jargon and hand-waving and gives executives clear, actionable advice on how to close the gap between strategy and execution.

We explain how to tie every phase of the strategy-making process more closely to implementation, how to identify the competencies your organization really needs to win in the marketplace, and how to get your employees to spend time on the right priorities.

Table of contents

• The Stretch Goal Paradox – Sim B. Sitkin, C. Chet Miller, and Kelly E. See

• Execution Is a People Problem, Not a Strategy Problem – Peter Bregman

• How Our Company Connected Our Strategy to Sustainability Goals – Michael W. Lamach

• How AI Will Change Strategy: A Thought Experiment – Ajay Agrawal, Avi Goldfarb, and Joshua Gans

• Closing the Strategy-Execution Gap Means focusing on What Employees Think, Not What They Do – Alison Reynolds and David Lewis

• To Sound Like a Leader, Think About What You Say, and How and When You Say It – Rebecca Shambaugh

• Your Strategy Won’t Work If You Don’t Identify the New Capabilities You Need – Logan Chandler and Ron Ashkenas

• The Best Companies Know How to Balance Strategy and Purpose – Jose Lopez, Laurent Chevreux, and Xavier Mesnard

• Good Strategy Execution Requires Balancing 4 Tensions – Michael Connerty and Simon Horan

• Smart Leaders Focus on Execution First and Strategy Second – Rosabeth Moss Kanter

• Is Execution Where Good Strategies Go to Die? – Mark Bonchek

• Many Strategies Fail Because They’re Not Actually Strategies – Freek Vermeulen

• Corporate Learning Programs Need to Consider Context, Not Just Skills – Todd Warner

• Your Strategy Should Be a Hypothesis You Constantly Adjust – Amy C. Edmondson and Paul J. Verdin

• Executives Fail to Execute Strategy Because They’re Too Internally Focused – Ron Carucci

• Your Strategy Has to Be Flexible–But So Does Your Execution – Martin Reeves and Rodolphe Charme di Carlo

• 3 Changes Retailers Need to Make to Survive – Deborah O’Neill and Nick Harrison

• Figure Out Your Company’s Make-or-Break Strategic Problems, Then Use Small Teams to Solve Them – James Allen

• How to Excel at Both Strategy and Execution – Joachim Rotering and Paul Leinwand

• 5 Ways the Best Companies Close the Strategy-Execution Gap – Michael Mankins

• CEOs Should Stop Thinking that Execution Is Somebody Else’s Job; It Is Theirs – Roger L. Martin

• Is Your Company Actually Set Up to Support Your Strategy? – Eric Garton

• How the Most Successful Teams Bridge the Strategy-Execution Gap – Nathan Wiita and Orla Leonard

• Great Corporate Strategies Thrive on the Right Amount of Tension – Carsten Lund Pedersen and Thomas Ritter

• How to Choose and Execute the Right Strategy – HBR Webinar with Martin Reeves

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