There are several lessons in this article from Booz & Co. that I thought would be of interest to  business owners. For me, the point about moving beyond sloganeering as a strategy is important.  I hope you find it helpful.

–Tony Collins

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Strategy or Execution: Which Is More Important?

Many business leaders think they’d rather have great execution than superior strategies, but you can’t have the first without the second.

 

by Ken Favaro, with Evan Hirsh and Kasturi Rangan

I once heard a business leader say, “Strategy is results.” He meant that strategy doesn’t matter as long as you are producing results. Many other business leaders feel the same way. Often, this is because they associate strategy with analysis and execution with getting things done, and they attribute more value to doing than to analyzing. From that perspective, a strategy is a lofty, self-evident statement such as “Our strategy is to maximize customer value” or “Our strategy is to become the market leader.” Such “strategies” don’t contribute much to producing results. Possibly, they motivate the troops, although even that is highly debatable.

On its surface, this view that strategy is less important than execution is hard to refute. If that’s all strategy is, execution is clearly more important.

But any seasoned strategist knows that strategy is not just sloganeering. It is the series of choices you make on where to play and how to win to maximize long-term value. Execution is producing results in the context of those choices. Therefore, you cannot have good execution without having good strategy.  >> Read More Here