Strategy Execution Isn't Your Problem: Strategy Design Is

"Our strategy is fine. We just need better execution."

I've heard this phrase - or variations of it – countless times during my career. I am pretty sure I even said it myself during my corporate days. It's become business gospel, the default explanation for why strategic plans fail to deliver.

The strategy is brilliant. The analysis was thorough. The recommendations are sound. We just can't seem to execute.

Here's what I've learned after 30+ years of working in and with organizations that "couldn't execute": it is a red herring.

So often, the problem isn't execution - it's that the strategy wasn’t executable to start with.

When strategy is designed with the right foundational context - clarity around Purpose, intentionality around Growth, and anticipation of Evolution - execution becomes exponentially easier. When it's not, even your best operators struggle to deliver. The execution problem is usually a strategy design problem in disguise.

The Execution Myth

The narrative goes like this: Strategy is the "thinking" part - the smart work done by consultants and senior leadership. Execution is the "doing" part - where the organization takes brilliant ideas and turns them into results.

If things go wrong, we blame execution. Poor communication. Lack of accountability. Insufficient resources. Resistance to change. Implementation failures.

Rarely do we question the strategy itself.

This makes intuitive sense. Strategy development is expensive, time-consuming, and often involves external experts. We've invested heavily in getting the strategy right. So, when results don't materialize, execution becomes the convenient scapegoat. But this narrative ignores a fundamental truth: A strategy that can't be executed wasn't actually a good strategy.

Brilliant analysis of market opportunity means nothing if your organization lacks the capability to capture it. Perfect competitive positioning is useless if your culture can't support the required changes. Aggressive growth targets are meaningless if your systems will break under the load.

Execution doesn't happen in isolation from strategy. It happens within the constraints created by strategy design. And if those constraints make execution impossible—or unnecessarily difficult—that's a design flaw, not an execution failure.

How Strategy Design Flaws Create Execution Problems

Let me show you how design flaws masquerade as execution failures:

Design Flaw #1: Strategy That Ignores Organizational Capacity

What it looks like: Your strategic plan calls for expanding into three new markets, launching two new product lines, and improving operational efficiency by 20% - all while maintaining current business operations. On paper, it's aggressive but achievable. The market analysis supports it. The financial projections work out.

What happens in execution: Your team is completely overwhelmed. Everything moves slower than planned. Quality suffers. People burn out. Initiatives start strong but lose momentum. Nothing gets finished properly because everyone is stretched too thin.

The real problem: This isn't an execution failure. It's a design failure. The strategy demanded more than your organization's actual capacity could deliver. You asked for 150% effort from a team running at 100% capacity, with no plan for how to bridge that gap.

What was missing: An honest assessment of organizational bandwidth. A plan for building capability before or alongside expansion. Strategic prioritization based on what could actually be accomplished. When strategy is designed without considering internal capacity, execution will always look like the problem. But the real issue is that you designed a strategy your organization couldn't possibly execute.

Design Flaw #2: Strategy Disconnected from Purpose

What it looks like: Your strategic plan contains clear initiatives and metrics. Revenue growth targets. Market expansion plans. Operational improvements. Everything logically sound and properly aligned with industry best practices.

What happens in execution: Your team goes through the motions but without genuine commitment. The work gets done, but barely. There's no energy behind it. No one can explain why these priorities matter beyond "this is what leadership wants."

The real problem: This isn't an engagement problem. It's a design problem. The strategy never connected to purpose in a way that created internal meaning. It's optimized for board presentation, not for inspiring the people who have to execute it.

What was missing: Strategic imperatives explicitly tied to vision and purpose. A clear articulation of why these initiatives matter - not just to shareholders or customers, but to the people doing the work. Connection between daily execution and larger organizational meaning. When strategy lacks internal Purpose clarity, it feels hollow. People execute because they're told to, not because they believe in it. That's not an execution problem, it's a design problem.

Design Flaw #3: Strategy That Ignores Required Evolution

What it looks like: Your strategic plan outlines ambitious goals that require your organization to operate completely differently. More collaboration across silos. Faster decision-making. Greater customer focus. More innovation.

What happens in execution: Everyone agrees these are good ideas. But nothing actually changes. The same old patterns persist. Silos remain. Decision-making is still slow. Customer focus is still lip service. Innovation still dies in committees.

The real problem: This isn't resistance to change. It's a design problem. Your strategy demands behaviors your culture doesn't support, requires capabilities you haven't built, and needs structures that don't exist, and with no plan for creating any of it.

What was missing: Explicit Evolution imperatives that address how the organization itself must change. Plans for building new capabilities. Time allocated for transformation, not just execution. Recognition that asking people to work differently requires changing the systems and structures that shape how they work. When strategy requires evolution without planning for it, execution looks like failure. But the real failure is designing strategy that demands change without creating the conditions for change to happen.

Design Flaw #4: Strategy Without Equilibrium

What it looks like: Your strategic plan is entirely focused on growth - aggressive revenue targets, market expansion, new products, increased market share. Every initiative, every metric, every conversation is about external growth.

What happens in execution: You hit your growth targets initially. But then things start breaking. Systems can't handle the volume. Quality declines. Culture deteriorates. Key people leave. Customer satisfaction drops. What looked like successful execution starts feeling like impending disaster.

The real problem: This isn't a scaling problem. It's a design problem. Your strategy was dangerously out of balance - all external focus with no corresponding attention to internal capacity, cultural health, or evolutionary readiness.

What was missing: Equilibrium across Purpose, Growth, and Evolution. Internal imperatives balanced with external ones. Recognition that sustainable success requires as much attention to organizational health as to market performance.

When strategy lacks balance, execution succeeds until it breaks. That breaking point isn't an execution failure; it's the inevitable consequence of unbalanced strategy design.

10 Questions to Ask About How Executable Your Strategy Is

Take a hard look at how you designed your strategy and are implementing it day-to-day, and answer the following true or false:

1. Our strategic imperatives are explicitly connected to our vision and purpose

2. Our people can articulate WHY our strategy matters (beyond just financial targets)

3. Our purpose is actively referenced in strategic decision-making

4. We have explicit plans for how to scale systems and processes

5. Growth targets are paced to match our realistic capacity to deliver

6. We've developed measures for capability growth alongside revenue growth

7. We've identified capabilities that need to be developed or acquired

8. We've allocated time and resources for organizational transformation

9. Our strategy balances internal and external priorities

10. We have mechanisms for maintaining equilibrium as we execute

If you answered more false than true, or you just aren’t sure, it’s a good time to revisit what you have going on.

5 Things That Make Strategy Truly Executable

So, what distinguishes executable strategy from the kind that sets teams up to fail? Here are the elements that make strategy genuinely executable:

First, it's grounded in honest organizational assessment

Executable strategy starts with brutal honesty about what your organization can actually do right now. Not what you wish it could do. Not what it should be able to do. What it actually can do today.

This includes:

• Current capacity and bandwidth

• Existing capabilities and skill gaps

• Cultural attributes that enable or constrain action

• Leadership team cohesion and effectiveness

• System and process maturity

When strategy is grounded in this reality, it can be designed to work within constraints while systematically building the capacity to overcome them.

Second, it creates meaningful context around Purpose, Growth, and Evolution

Executable strategy doesn't jump straight from vision to initiatives. It creates context by defining strategic imperatives – those things that are absolutely critical for the success and sustainability of the organization - across three foundational elements:

• Purpose imperative(s) that advance vision and create internal meaning

• Growth imperative(s) that build capacity alongside external expansion

• Evolution imperative(s) that plan for how the organization must change

This context transforms strategy from a list of things to do into a coherent framework that guides decision-making and prioritization. This isn’t the never-ending to-do list. PGE Imperatives connect vision to goals and are the guiding points of the plan for 3-5 years; and there should only be 3-6 of them in total.

Third, it maintains equilibrium across competing priorities

Executable strategy doesn't pretend trade-offs don't exist. It acknowledges them and actively manages them. When strategy maintains equilibrium, execution doesn't require choosing between contradictory demands.

It balances:

• Short-term results with long-term capability building

• External growth with internal capacity

• Stability with innovation

• Efficiency with adaptability

It shows up in every conversation around the table – every opportunity, every market shift, every emerging risk – the question to ask is how does this affect our current PGE imperatives? This understanding throws the light on for so many of my clients: “You mean to tell me that if what we are talking about in the board room doesn’t support our purpose, growth, or evolution, that we shouldn’t even be talking about it? I like it!”

Fourth, it's specific enough to guide but flexible enough to adapt

Executable strategy provides clear priorities and imperatives while leaving room for adaptation in how they're achieved. It doesn't prescribe every tactic or micromanage execution. It creates boundaries within which teams can make good decisions. Organizations thrive best when there exists the freedom to implement creative solutions that solve problem on the front lines.

It answers:

• What are we trying to accomplish and why?

• What are the few critical imperatives that will get us there?

• How will we know if we're succeeding?

None of these questions can or should be answered in the exclusivity of the c-suite. Guidance is what a strategic plan provides – strategic thinking discipline is what you create the room for in its execution.

Fifth, it plans for the evolution it requires both short and long-term

Executable strategy doesn't assume the organization can magically transform overnight. Too often we perceive evolution as a slow-moving thing, so slow in fact that we don’t have to deal with it. When our strategy is designed to constantly ask “who are we and who are our clients not just tomorrow but in five or ten years, we begin to see the chess board several steps ahead, and we make decisions today that support the ones we will have to make tomorrow.

Evolution explicitly addresses:

• What cultural attributes must change

• What technologies do we adopt

• What leadership development must occur

• What capabilities do we want to acquire next

It treats organizational evolution as a strategic imperative, not an implementation detail.

How to Up Your Strategy Game From Here

The next time you're tempted to say "our strategy is fine, we just need better execution," pause. Ask yourself and your team the Ten Questions above. Be honest about the answers.

Here's the good news: Design problems are fixable.

You don't need to scrap your entire strategic plan. You need to add the missing foundational context:

If Purpose is weak: Define strategic imperatives that explicitly advance your vision and create internal meaning. Connect the dots between daily work and larger purpose.

If Growth readiness is weak: Add imperatives focused on building internal capacity. Assess realistically what your organization can handle and pace growth accordingly.

If Evolution planning is weak: Explicitly identify what must change in how you organize and operate. Create imperatives focused on capability building and cultural evolution.

If Balance is weak: Step back and look at your strategic priorities holistically. Are they all pushing in one direction? Reprioritize or restructure imperatives to create equilibrium and then make sure equilibrium is nested in your decision-making process.

These additions don't invalidate your existing strategy. They complete it by adding the context that makes it executable.

The Real Execution Challenge

I'm not suggesting execution is easy. It's not. Even with perfectly designed strategy, execution requires:

• Clear communication

• Strong accountability

• Adequate resources

• Effective project management

• Engaged leadership

• Persistent follow-through

All of that matters. Execution is hard work. But here's the thing: When strategy is well-designed, execution becomes exponentially easier. People understand why they're doing what they're doing. The work feels meaningful. Priorities are clear. The organization has the capacity to deliver. Evolution is planned for.

When strategy is poorly designed, even heroic execution efforts struggle. People don't understand the why. The work feels disconnected from purpose. Everything is equally important (which means nothing is important). The organization is overwhelmed. Change is expected without being supported.

The difference between "our people can't execute" and "our people are successfully executing" often isn't the people. It's the quality of the strategy they're trying to execute.

Stop blaming execution. Start designing better strategy.

I'm launching a new ebook: Essential Strategy: A New Formula for Solving Old Programs with Strategy! Sign up here and follow me on LinkedIn or Facebook to get yours free as soon as it drops!