What does it take to turn a brilliant strategy into real-world results? How can leaders navigate the complex challenges of implementing organizational change?
Implementing a strategy effectively requires more than just a solid plan—it demands leadership skills, organizational awareness, and the ability to make tough decisions. Successful implementation involves multiple critical steps and considerations.
Continue reading for Richard Rumelt’s expert advice on how to implement a strategy.
Implementing Your Strategy
Once you’ve identified your core problem and used it to devise a powerful strategy, it’s time to put that strategy into action. Rumelt provides specific guidance on how to implement a strategy, explaining that it requires you to overcome resistance within your organization and authoritatively make decisions that may not always be popular.
Overcoming Organizational Resistance
Rumelt explains that the biggest roadblocks in effective strategy implementation often come from the organization itself. This is particularly true of larger, more successful organizations. Such establishments are strong in that they’ve figured out how to run on a large scale, but this success can lead to organizational inertia: They become complacent, and they’re resistant to changing traditions and established systems due to bureaucracy, a lack of clear guidelines, and a culture that values conformity over creativity.
For example, a long-established bank may have found that during their inception, their personal interactions with customers gave them an edge over their competitors. However, as technology in the industry advances, the company struggles to adopt digital banking solutions due to outdated IT systems and resistance from employees accustomed to traditional banking methods.
(Shortform note: In Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Rumelt cautions not only against organizational inertia, but also organizational entropy. Entropy is when a successful company loses its coherence and focus as a result of a lack of competition. While the definitions of the two terms have some overlap, we may infer that organizational inertia is the result of complacency among employees, and organizational entropy is the result of complacency among leadership. Businesses should be on the lookout for both to ensure that their strategy doesn’t face internal resistance.)
To overcome organizational resistance, you must get commitment from leadership and cut out distractions.
Commitment From Leadership
It’s difficult to break out of traditions and routines, so you need a committed leadership team who is consistently working to implement the strategy and monitor progress. For example, an established university might be working on a comprehensive curriculum overhaul. The leadership, such as the university president and board, can champion the project by engaging with faculty, students, and alumni to build support and address concerns.
(Shortform note: In Leading Change, John P. Kotter echoes Rumelt’s recommendation to get commitment from leadership, explaining that successful organizational transformation requires a strong guiding coalition with enough power to lead the change effort. He recommends creating committees to address organizational problems, appointing people from all levels of the organization and giving prominent roles to people already in leadership positions. This ensures not only that your committee is representative of the organization as a whole, but also that it will have the authority to enact the changes it identifies as necessary.)
Cutting Out Distractions
You can also overcome resistance by refining your organization’s focus and cutting out distractions, Rumelt explains. Cut down on activities that don’t serve your strategy, either by delegating them to third parties or eliminating them altogether. Additionally, narrow your company’s focus by discontinuing products and services that impede progress or interfere with your strategy.
For example, a software company might discontinue support for legacy products, allowing it to reallocate resources to developing new, more competitive offerings. Or a restaurant chain may simplify its menu, eliminating low-margin items to focus on signature dishes, thus improving kitchen efficiency and food quality.
(Shortform note: In Indistractable, Nir Eyal offers some tips for how to cut down on distractions in your own life; these can be adapted to apply to business strategy as well. He recommends that you build your schedule around your values—in our context, that could mean ensuring that every scheduled activity in your calendar helps you implement your strategy. Additionally, he suggests that you identify and monitor your “triggers,” or the things that prompt you to switch over to distracting work. For example, if you know you have an employee who, despite their hard work and commitment, tends to bring up irrelevant or distracting issues, be prepared to redirect them when they approach you or raise their hand in a meeting.)
Making Unpopular Decisions
In addition to overcoming organizational inertia, implementing your strategy requires you to make, communicate, and enforce strong leadership decisions—some of which may be unpopular. Rumelt explains that you’ll have to prioritize certain projects over others, devoting more time, resources, and personnel to the actions that align with your strategy. This may be challenging for a leader who isn’t comfortable telling people what to do and frustrating for team members who feel committed to those lower-priority projects. However, if you can’t make and enforce these difficult decisions, your strategy won’t succeed.
| Cultivating Leadership Traits Making strong leadership decisions requires you to take on the characteristics of a good leader. In The Leadership Challenge, James Kouzes and Barry Pozner outline the traits leaders need to cultivate. Leaders must be competent (capable of making strong decisions), honest (capable of communicating those decisions), and inspiring and forward-thinking (able to move others to carry out those decisions). They must also be willing to challenge the status quo, despite the discomfort that may cause. To do this, the authors recommend that you take initiative: Boldly identify problems, devise solutions, and put those solutions into action in a timely manner. However, you should make sure those solutions have a strong rationale behind them. There’s no need to over-exercise your authority or unnecessarily frustrate employees when what they’re currently doing is working well, or when the company’s actions are already aligned with your strategy. |
When You Lack the Authority to Lead
Sometimes, you may discover that you lack sufficient authority in your organization to make and implement decisions in pursuit of your strategy. This is often the case in large bureaucracies or with temporary leadership positions. In such situations, you’ll be unable to implement your strategy unless you can first effect some structural change that grants you more authority. This may not always be possible, but if you’re committed to making it happen, Rumelt recommends that you formulate your strategy for gaining more authority using the same methods described above.
(Shortform note: You may not always be able to increase your formal authority in an organization. However, in The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Ronald A. Heifetz explains how you can harness political power to increase your informal authority. This can help you manage your team and potentially effect greater structural change. To do this, Heifetz recommends that you use your current authority to gain access to people with greater authority, giving you leverage for making changes at higher levels of the organization. Also, build your credibility with small successes early on so that people will see you as someone who can wield power responsibly. This will help you use the power you already have and potentially set you up to gain more.)
Exercise: Formulate a Strategy
- Consider how you might formulate a strategy to address your core problem. What near-term objective (achievable in one to three years) could you set that would help you make progress toward solving this problem?
- Reflect on your organization’s strengths or your personal strengths. How could you incorporate one of these advantages into your strategy for addressing the core problem?
