Emerce | Accelerating and Innovating: Tips for Strategy Execution

Improving, renewing, and innovating faster in a new era. According to Jacques Pijl, Strategy Execution is a discipline in its own right and must become a Core Competency—at least if you want your organization to innovate successfully. In this context, agility in Strategy Execution is just as important as effectiveness and speed. We’ve all been there—a plan gathering dust on a shelf. Who doesn’t have one? But how do you put a strategic plan into action?

In response to Jacques Pijl’s book *Strategy = Execution*, Hein Knaapen, Chief HR Officer at ING, among others, agrees: “Executing strategy is just as essential as the strategy itself.” I speak with Jacques about his book, and I’m particularly curious about the learning opportunities for managers and marketers.

“Failure” is the order of the day

According to Jacques, there are three reasons for writing about Strategy Execution: “To begin with, many organizations have long been poor at achieving what they set out to do. Most companies have Failure Factors that hover between 60 and 90 percent. But after the crisis years, in this new era we also call The New Normal, we’ve returned to business as usual. No organization can keep up with the pace of change it managed before 2008. We were already poor at something we now actually need to get even better at, because all the changes around us are happening very quickly.

Finally, and this is the third reason for writing about Strategy Execution, is that we must serve multiple objectives these days—both business and societal. It’s no longer enough to simply keep shareholders satisfied. Organizations must continually improve their strategy and execution because they are pursuing an increasing number of objectives simultaneously.”

How We’re All Getting Simon Sinek’s “Golden Circle” Wrong

In his book, Jacques Pijl discusses four accelerators: CHOOSE, INITIATE, HARVEST, and SECURE. These accelerators form the framework for the “how-to” of the Strategy Execution model. “CHOOSE” refers to the process of developing a widely supported strategy. “INITIATE” describes the process of conducting analysis, design, and initial execution for each initiative. “Harvest” involves reaping the benefits, Continuous Development of the initiative, and scaling it up. By “Secure,” Jacques refers to the process of securing those benefits and learning from the experience.

Jacques: “Everyone is familiar with Simon Sinek’s ‘Golden Circle’ or ‘Start with Why.’ Sinek points out that you need to have a clear understanding of the ‘Why, What, and How’ to be successful. The ‘Why’ often gets the most attention. The ‘Why’ is all about your purpose. What are you doing this for? Why does your organization exist? Only when it’s clear why a person or an organization does something can people believe in it.

But Sinek is actually being misrepresented a bit because an unjustified, overly one-sided focus on the “Why” has emerged, even though he never said to work solely on the “Why”—rather, start with the “Why” and then work out the “What” and the “How” as well. If there’s one thing that’s important in the times we live in now, it’s this “How,” because that’s often the biggest stumbling block for organizations. The “How” is strategic.

Nobody eats gray soup

Jacques speaks with executives every day and has noticed that their strategy often covers everything—and thus, if they’re not careful, ends up covering nothing. Breaking through this fog is the biggest challenge: “You have to dare to CHOOSE and stand behind your choices. And on top of that, you have to distinguish between ‘run’ and ‘change’ and embrace both. ‘Run’ encompasses all the normal day-to-day tasks, such as talking to customers, answering the phone, providing IT support, and so on.”

When it comes to “Change,” you can distinguish between several types of change—such as continuous improvement, something that companies like CoolBlue and Wehkamp simply have in their DNA. In addition, you can work on fundamental renewal, but still within the boundaries of existing Business Models. Consider, for example, an integration process following a merger; it affects all disciplines within a company and, for that reason, must be managed as a project. And finally, there’s truly fundamental, disruptive renewal, where you go beyond the boundaries of a company. Think, for example, of Uber or FinTech startups.

“To avoid getting bogged down in the gray area, it’s important for an organization to distinguish between run and change projects. And on the change side, to distinguish between improvement, renewal, and innovation. Because each type requires a different approach.”

The Impact of Failure

In marketing, too, we often talk about pilot projects and testing the waters—it’s okay if something doesn’t work out. In his book, Jacques discusses the impact of failure and the costs of failure. I ask Jacques how a marketing director can incorporate this into his or her plans.

“I’ve never really believed in the polarization between the ‘rigid’ schools (no, Innovation is a process) and the free schools (let a thousand flowers bloom). I believe in ‘both-and.’ In the successful cases we’ve analyzed, we see that gathering ideas and testing them is necessary; one must always be open to this. In conversations with administrators, they regularly said that, of course, ideas must always be gathered. This is a process that must always be ongoing; the ideas eventually flow into a funnel. Which ideas go on the long list, which on the short list, and which become experiments? This is a constant learning process. Organizations that combine both the free-form collection of ideas with structured SELECTION and experimentation are successful. They understand very well that they can only use every minute and every euro once.”

“Time” is just as important as money

One topic that comes up is the strategic use of time. In *Strategy Execution*, Jacques highlights “time” as one of the key Success Factors: “What constitutes Time Best Spent in strategy and execution? It’s not spending eight months thinking about a long-term strategy. That’s the biggest sin in strategy and execution. I noticed among the executives I spoke with that time is just as important a KPI as money. And that they actually manage based on that, communicating this to the project managers and making it clear that they shouldn’t spend months on analyses and designs.”

The Two-Track Approach

The Two-Track Approach is the second major trend Jacques describes. The Two-Track Approach is traditionally a head with a face on both the front and the back, named after the Roman god Janus: “It’s about realizing that you need a second gear. Every established organization needs that second gear. You have to dare to set a division apart in terms of budget, autonomy, etc., to really accelerate Innovation. Think of Aegon, which launched Knab as a separate entity on the market.”

Time is money

The book *Strategy Execution* is over 350 pages long, and I don’t have much time; I ask Jacques how I can read the book most efficiently. What parts should I definitely read, and in what order?

Jacques: “Yes, the fact is that I wanted to present a comprehensive view of modern strategy, execution, and innovation, and that requires space. At the same time, I wanted it to be very practical. Make use of the table of contents in the book. The book is very practical—you can easily look up anything. It’s primarily a practical guide.”

Jacques Pijl and Marketing

For over twenty years, Jacques Pijl has been working closely with executives and teams at leading organizations to solve critical challenges in Strategy Execution and Innovation. He guides large-scale transformations and targeted interventions in the private and (semi-)Public sectors. Jacques is the director of the consulting firm Turner, a thought leader, and a sought-after speaker on Strategy Execution and Innovation. He previously authored the bestseller *The New Normal*. Jacques Pijl is adamant: “Strategy Execution is the last competitive advantage.”

On March 16, 2017, Jacques Pijl will speak at the CMO dinner in Wassenaar, following the B2B Marketing Forum, to a select group of marketing directors from the Netherlands. What would Jacques like to learn from these marketing directors?

“I’m especially curious about how specific disciplines (in this case, marketing) view phenomena such as Strategy Execution. Every discipline views it differently. When I talk to HR, they often focus on the ‘soft’ side of the model; supply chain looks at the ‘hard’ side, and marketing often considers a mix of the two. That’s what I’d like to explore. And I’d also like to know how multidisciplinary people are. “If you want to innovate, you have to take a lot of factors into account and consult with various departments.”