"Who murdered strategy?"

"When strategy is murdered in an organization who is blamed, who is the equivalent of the butler? Fortunately you do not have to wait to the last page to find out. Amazingly the strategy itself is blamed. Leaders say ‘‘well the strategy must have been wrong’’ and move on. This is amazing because leaders never look beyond their first (and often) only suspect. If it was not the strategy then who else can be responsible?.The implementation.As an implementation specialist whose work starts after the strategy has been crafted, I am more than happy with strategy constantly taking the blame. But it is a short sighted view that is damaging and distorting leaders’ implementation abilities. Leaders must recognize that strategy implementation is extremely difficult and that they habitually underestimate its challenges. They perceive crafting strategy as the harder challenge and therefore by default blame the toughest area when it fails. Executing strategy, however, is just as tough as crafting the right strategy. Therefore typically it is evenly balanced where the blame lies for strategy’s murder....Currently too many leaders delegate their implementation responsibilities and do not follow through on the actions. When leaders stop paying attention to the implementation so do the staff members and it starts to fail. Leaders must take more time to reflect that the suspects for strategy’s murder come from both strategy and its implementation....Before you start the implementation of your next strategy, take the time to learn from what has happened before in your organization. Take the time to: * make sure you know why previous strategies have failed;* examine what happened in both the planning and the implementation of the strategy;* identify lessons that can be shared;* understand what works and what doesn’t in your culture;* identify the critical success factors for moving forward; and
* constantly review your new implementation to ensure you are not repeating mistakes."

Trechos retirados de "Who murdered strategy?", Strategic Direction, Vol. 27 Iss 9 pp. 3 - 5, Robin Speculand, (2011).