Mindset for strategy execution

 There’s lots of tools and techniques for improving the success of strategy execution. But it starts with mindset. These 10 principles help you develop the right mindset for strategy execution.  

Principle 1. Just Do It

Focus on action rather than on endless deliberation. Not blind action, but mindful action in line with the direction you want to move.

Principle 2. Perfect is the Enemy of Good

Good is good enough. Don’t keep on refining, improving, testing, or analyzing. You are wrong anyway, so you can just as well move on. 

Principle 3. You Can’t Have It Both Ways

Be prepared to make the tough choices. You can’t have it all and need to stop or never start doing just as many (or even more) things than you start or keep doing. 

Principle 4. There Are Many Ways to Skin a Cat

There are many ways to do something and there is not one best way. Don’t get stuck with just one approach or target. Vary and adapt. 

Principle 5. Find 10,000 Ways That Won’t Work

Be ready to fail and be wrong. Adopt an experimental, trial & error mindset and build further on what you have learned. Step by step. 

Principle 6. Persist By Pulling Out

Know when to stop something and move on. This is not failure or giving up. On the contrary, it means you persist through other means.

Principle 7. Speed Up by Taking It Slow

After having spent much time on analysis, impatience makes people jump to execution. Before you do so, you need to spend time on making your strategy executable. 

Principle 8. The Power of Simplicity

Strategy is complex. But especially strategy execution need not be complex. Keep it simple, focus and finish before you move on to the next thing. 

Principle 9. We’re In This Together

Enforcing a strategy top-down is a recipe for failure. Involve and engage people across the organization both during strategy generation and execution.

Principle 10. No Place for HiPPOs

Strategy and execution flourish with a modest type of leader who assumes others may know better than them. Be no HiPPO (or any other animal in the Management Zoo).

When you develop a mindset along these ten principles, I want to bet your strategy generation and execution efforts will improve. Of course it matters how you implement them in practice, but once you have the right mindset in place, the rest is easy.

#strategyexecution

#growthmindset

#strategicplanning