Failure = okay (but learning from it)

Disruption and volatility can lead to confusion and mistakes. That’s never a bad thing. Because learning from worst practices helps. Take, for example, how millions in public funds were squandered at the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) due to a toxic corporate culture caused by slow decision-making. Or how, at the Amsterdam Ambulance Service, superficial relationships and insufficient oversight led to a tragedy. Or how, at the Tergooi hospitals, a merger resulted not in synergy but in a major headache due to incompatible IT systems. Or V&D, which fell behind in innovation, partly due to failed reorganizations.

That leads to some hard lessons. For example:

– Enormous Failure Costs due to untapped potential, high direct costs, or overburdened employees
– A strategy that hasn’t been fully embraced, because then it has no value in execution
– Unclear responsibilities and poor financial accountability
– Lack of information, or conversely, an excess of information
– Burning through 80 percent of the budget before taking action
– Insufficient attention to drivers, perceptions, behavior, and motivation and inspiration

Waking Up Ready to Get Things Done

Disruption promises sleepless nights for CEOs and boards who prefer to plan things out calmly. For them, the book *Strategy Execution* (aff.) belongs on the nightstand. Every day, a mandatory half-hour spent reading Jacques Pijl, so that the next morning, from the quiet of the bedroom, they can wake up in the right state of mind—well-grounded and thoughtful.

Organizational consultant Jacques Pijl notes that companies are frustrated by the inability to effectively implement changes. Pijl is a strategic consultant for change initiatives in the private and Public sectors. A few years ago, he wrote the bestseller “The New Normal,” in which he wrote vividly about preparing a company for the 21st century.

Key insights from *Strategy = Execution* by
According to the author, successful innovation in the 21st century means embracing three forms of change: run, change, and Strategy Execution. Next, you ensure effectiveness and agility. So, think Joe Speedboat instead of a mammoth tanker. A speedboat that is entirely “yin-yang”: the soft is hard, the hard is soft. Moreover, Digital Innovation isn’t a choice—it’s a must. And you embrace the Pareto principle in running your organization: 20 percent strategy, 80 percent action, action, action.

These four accelerators help with that:

Accelerator 1. Choose

With this first Accelerator, focus is the magic word. Start with the four Building Blocks: AMBITION (an agile target you spend just 15 minutes on), SELECTION (make a clear choice so you can give precise assignments), APPEL (test and enrich your business story), and ACTIVATION (everyone needs to be on the same page and on the same bandwagon). Otherwise, it won’t work—not at all.

Accelerator 2. Initiate

With the “INITIATE” accelerator, how you get started is important. The four Building Blocks are:

Must-have: Make sure the assignment is clear
BREAKTHROUGH: Create a minimum viable product and a logical Customer Journey
Start Excellent: Start Fast, It’s Okay to Fail
The “soft power” psychological check-in: there must be buy-in among the key players driving the initiative. This can be seen, for example, at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, where the technical faculty was able to improve academic outcomes by forming small improvement teams.

Accelerator 3. HARVEST

Four more Building Blocks:

Benefits: Start by measuring and harvesting data, with an emphasis on presenting the facts
Continuous Development: Work toward constant alignment and accept that development is never linear; however, if you align perfectly with customer needs, you will experience logarithmic growth.
“SCALING”: a somewhat awkward translation of “scale up” to describe growing from 7 to 700, or from 15 to 1,500 employees
Overcome obstacles: remove barriers and ensure that professionals make the transition irreversible. Major changes often start with small steps.

Accelerator 4. SECURE

The last accelerator consists of the following Building Blocks:

Adjusting Course: Inseparably Linked to Constant Innovation
Open Architecture: To be able to change and grow, it makes sense for processes and knowledge to be easily shareable
Learning: Innovation and execution cannot exist without the ability to learn
Going the extra mile: those responsible for results must be able to take ownership of the change. Embed the change. At Nauta Dutilh, the Lean Academy was successfully introduced to embed a new, never-ending way of working.

Give yourself some time

I was a bit hesitant to tackle the nearly four hundred pages. You really have to set aside time for it. Fortunately, the book can be broken down. Nearly one hundred pages are appendices: analysis and process models, glossaries, and quotes from the interviews—all of which are useful as reference material. That leaves just over two hundred pages. These are logically organized according to the “Strategy Execution” model, based on four Accelerators. Each Accelerator has six Success Factors—four Building Blocks, comprising two hard and two soft factors. So, in total, there are 16 Building Blocks.

You’ll gain a lot: academic insights, an overarching model, and plenty of real-world examples. But the author also expects something from you. Don’t try to rush through the book. Sometimes it’s wise to reread a chapter to truly internalize the power of Strategy Execution. That’s where you’ll get the most out of it.
Read also: How to Develop a Winning Innovation Strategy!

What makes or breaks Strategy Execution and Innovation today?

In *Strategy Execution*, Jacques Pijl has written a book for established organizations and startups. The author’s basic premise is that strategy without execution is just hot air, and execution without strategy is like a blind mole trying to survive above ground. You need both strategy and execution—preferably in an ideal blend and as closely integrated as possible: Strategy Execution.

The author didn’t rush into writing this book. For three years, the consulting firm Turner—where Jacques Pijl serves as director—interviewed nearly sixty executives and managers and reviewed more than three hundred books and articles. In total, nearly seventy case studies were analyzed. The central question was: What makes or breaks Strategy Execution and Innovation today? The first answer: 80 percent “how-to.” Because that’s what the author wants: to share a lot of practical knowledge and get readers started right away.

Strategy Execution is like a Rubik’s Magic Cube: comprehensive, with no ready-made answers, but a highly compelling combination of research, analysis, conceptual modeling, and practical experience. It’s no surprise that the book was among the nominees for this year’s management book of the year. Five out of five stars.