Rebecca Homkes explains a new strategy to execute strategy more effectively for your organisation.

1. 1
Rebecca Homkes
suggests a framework
to help execute strategy
effectively within your
organisation.
A framework to execute
strategy better

2. A strategy framework
If you want to drive successful
execution, where do you begin?
It helps to build a holistic
understanding of the key
drivers of execution and
how these fit together.
How it fits together
A strategy framework
2

3. 3
A strategy framework
While most organisations
have a top executive team,
distributed leaders, and a
strategy, the problem is
that these three are often
disconncted from each other.
Shared context is missing: the
common understanding of what
and why it matters, how the
pieces fit together, and what
is and is not working. It ties
together leaders with strategy
and helps them align actions,
coordinate activities, and adapt,
as circumstances change.
Shared context
Top team
Distributed
leaders
Strategy
Shared
context

4. 4
A strategy framework
Leaders to drive execution
Key to execution is making
and delivering on performance
commitments.
Processes, formal and informal,
should be established to better
manage thse commitments up
and down the organisation, across
units and divisions, and outside the
company. These processes must
also help renegotiate commitments
when circumstances change.

5. 5
A strategy framework
Allocation of resources
The most critical resources
an organisation has –
cash, people, and senior
managerial time – must
be allocated and assigned
to the areas where they
matter the most.

6. 6
A strategy framework
Culture that supports execution
For effective execution, the challenge
is to establish a culture of execution,
or the bundle of values and
behaviours that supports execution
over the long run.

7. 7
A strategy framework
Understand
your strategy
and top priorities
Most people don’t know what
their organisation’s strategy
is, and this really matters
for execution.
When asked to list the top
priorities of their organisation,
on average, fewer than 60 per
cent of distributed leaders
could converge on even one
top priority. Companies must
strive to simplify their strategy
for better understanding.
% of leaders agree
on top priorities60Fewer than

8. A strategy framework
The solution is not
to increase communication
What we need is a set of
discussions that build an
understanding of what we are
going to do, and what we are
not going to do, and provide
distributed leaders with the
criteria they need to make the
critical choices they face in
executing in their markets.
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9. 9
A strategy framework
Do the right things
Execution is not about doing
everything right; it’s about
doing the right things.
Organisations struggle to
allocate resources to activities
that matter most. Execution is
about focusing time, energy,
and resources on the few things
which will do the most
to create value.

10. You need good data to execute
Managers can trust
their gut instincts too
much... But in complex,
ambiguous, and fast
changing environments,
this can be a trap.
A strategy framework
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11. 11
A strategy framework
Effective execution
is an enduring challenge
Execution is hard because it means
facing and resolving the tension
between apparently conflicting
needs. The trade-offs are live,
real, and tough to make.
Mastering it is rare.
But the rewards are great.

12. Rebecca Homkes is a Teaching Fellow at
London Business School.
The research is also discussed in the Harvard
Business Review article ‘Why strategy
execution derails and what to do about it’, with
her colleague Don Sull, Senior Lecturer at the
MIT Sloan School of Management.
The full blog post was published on London
Business School Review online.
Visit the website: www.london.edu/lbsr