Good Strategies Fail Because…

Ever think that you have a good idea and really want to push for it to become a potential strategy for your business? There is so many good strategies that are started but fail. Why do they fail? Everything sounded great, but frankly they pretty much fail because of execution… I can safely say, “I have had a few good strategies fail in my day.” We have plenty of examples to look at in today’s world as well. Just look at the Affordable Care Act. Great idea, strategy to provide healthcare of all Americans. Definitely something that on paper makes total sense

Can better execution be taught? I think you can definitely make those that are implementing the strategy be aware of some key variables. If people understand the key variables, they know what to look for and can plan accordingly – in most cases.

What are those key items that play into poor execution?

• Shifting priorities… When the focus of the strategy is allowed to shift over time, you can pretty much know the strategy is not going to be executed well. Call it chasing your tail, scope creep, or changing priorities. The name does not matter. With ACA – this started out and continues to have nothing but a changing priority item. Over 50% of the people do not want this. For whatever reason – the ACA is continuing to be under attack.

First step is to define the challenge. You need to make sure that you have the right product to the right customers at the right time. Let’s forget about the fighting over if ACA is a good idea or strategy. Look at implementation for a moment. When it was rolled out the overall success at start was terrible. Overall bad program management – no enough bandwidth, poor website design and so on.. An IT project that is the poster boy for what not to do.

• Plans also fail because of communication. We all know that communication can be singled out as a part of everything that can go wrong. Do the right people know? Do they know what to do? How to do it? So on and so on. I really don’t think everyone had a clue of what the Affordable Care Act was and how it is supposed to work at the time of implementation. If you were to ask folks today – they probably still don’t know. Communication has a sender and receiver – anyone can break the loop.
• Here is a big one – strategies fail because of folks are resist to the change. No real big surprise here – the ACA keeps being talked about as it needs to go away. It has gone to the Supreme Court and yet we still have folks that want it to go away

Sometimes a strategy might make perfect sense at the highest level. Making sure that everyone has health care insurance makes perfect sense. But when you leave that highest level and go down to through the various level – the resistance to the change will increase. Ask any insurance company if they are happy with ACA? Ask the doctors if they are happy with ACA? Ask the individuals if they are happy with ACA? I am going to go out on a limb and say – there are more unhappy with it than those that are. We are all resist of change for the most part.

• I think the biggest factor to poor implementation is executive inattention. Once the plan is decided upon, there is surprising little follow-through to make sure that execution happens properly. You don’t have to go far to see how the implementation and roll out went for ACA. As mentioned above the poster boy of failed IT project. Who was really watching the store? That failure leads to, “I told you so,”

Nothing is ever perfect. When you start off with a very strong resistance to moving forward. Get to consensus as quickly as possible. Make sure to remind those that are resist that they do agree. Then plan out properly with understanding all of the variables that could happen. Communicate and communicate and well communicate again. Make sure that the receivers actually understands. It will be difficult, but it will help in the long run. Follow up! Keep on track of progress. Watch out for shifting priorities.

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