The opportunity for a gap to open between an organisation’s knowledge of ‘what to do’ and its ability ‘to do it’ is enormous.

Research shows that the roadblocks for strategic implementation are often embedded in an organisation’s leadership. Michael Beer, a Harvard Business School professor and Russel A. Eisenstat, a senior organisational fellow at McKinsey & Co., has gone beyond this and identified six silent killers of strategy implementation:

1. Top down or laissez-faire senior management style.
2. Unclear strategy and conflicting priorities.
3. An ineffective senior management team.
4. Poor vertical communication.
5. Poor co-ordination across functions, businesses or borders.
6. Inadequate down-the-line leadership skills and development.

While the first three killers relate to ineffective leadership and speak to a gap in the quality of strategic direction given, the last two signal a gap in the quality of implementation and poor vertical communication to an organisational learning gap.

Beer and Eisenstat refer to them as silent because they ‘are rarely publicly acknowledged or explicitly addressed’. They advocate for the six silent killers to be tackled head-on and transformed into six core capabilities:

1. A leadership style that embraces the paradox of top-down direction and upward influence, learning from the feedback of those down the line.
2. Clear strategy, clear priorities and significant amounts of time discussing it with lower levels.
3. An effective top team, whose members possess a general management orientation and who embrace constructive conflict to arrive at a common voice.
4. Open vertical communication. The executive and lower levels are engaged in an open dialogue about the organisation's effectiveness.
5. Effective coordination and teamwork across diverse functions, localities and businesses. It requires unlearning the belief that “competition brings out the best in us.”
6. Down-the-line leadership. Mid-level managers with the potential to develop leadership skills and a general-management perspective are given clear accountability and authority.

Even with the knowledge to turnaround a failing strategic implementation, being open to unfreezing old ways of leading and working and adopting fresh approaches can be challenging for an organisation.

Typically, organisations choose one of three responses:

1. Avoidance – constructive conflict is scary, and no executive likes to be embarrassed, threatened, or to backtrack.
2. Managerial replacement – this assumes the mental models and relationships of new executives are not constrained by the past.
3. Engagement – the best approach but often the path least trod.

Injecting new thinking, skills and experiences into a strategic implementation, from teams and leaders who are at arms-length, can complement an engagement approach.

Does any of this sound familiar to your organisation? If so, you’ve already taken the first step.

Brent Letson, Davidson’s Technology Consulting Practice Director, has seen many examples of strong strategy flounder in implementation. ‘In my experience, the six silent killers are common patterns and occur to varying degrees across any complex organisation. Understanding how to align leadership and co-ordinate communication and functions is critical.’

At Davidson, our Technology consulting and Business Advisory teams are adept at helping organisations take the next steps—assessing, diagnosing, designing and delivering on strategic implementations at whatever phase of the journey you find yourself.

Contact us for a confidential chat today.