It’s a new year. You and your team have just taken a fresh look at your strategic direction and established specific goals for this year. The strategy is clear; the goals are lofty. Here’s where it gets tricky and where many leaders fail to bring their strategy to life.
As 2016 approaches, let’s take a moment to review the nine critical reasons why leadership teams fail to execute:
1) Poorly defined business vision
A vision must be realistic, practical, specific, and targeted. And, it must be measurable.
2) Lack of organizational clarity
When you get the right people in the right seats and they are held accountable, that’s called organizational clarity. Without it, your ability to execute your plan will be seriously hampered.
3) Lack of or ineffective use of data
Every business needs key information to tell its leadership team how they’re doing. They also need to know how to interpret that information to drive effective decision-making. Without good data, you won’t execute effectively.
4) Inability to resolve issues
It takes discipline and courage to face tough issues that challenge your company’s success. Learn to “go to the danger zone” and face your toughest issues head-on. Business – like life – is full of issues and the sooner you learn how to deal with them head on, the sooner your team will execute and deliver great results.
5) Weak or nonexistent processes
Most hard-charging business owners focus on getting and keeping customers. Building robust processes that are followed by all can feel monotonous and boring. Yet, without robust processes, a company cannot repeat excellence, grow, and sustain itself effectively.
6) Inability and unwillingness to take action
Here’s what weak leadership teams do: they avoid any regular, disciplined, and consistent goal-setting and decision-making. Take the time and make the effort to set measurable goals and make decisions crisply. Your bottom line will thank you!
7) Lack of courage
Translation: fear. Fear of change, fear of addressing issues, fear of defining roles and responsibilities with clarity. Fear is an execution showstopper.
8) Lack of follow-through
It takes laser-like focus to accomplish even a short priority list. Without milestones, metrics, and effective meetings, nothing happens. Count on it.
9) Lack of accountability
Simply put, when leaders don’t make themselves accountable, they derail any hope of execution. Don’t make excuses. Have the hard conversations and meet deadlines.
It’s easy to delude ourselves into thinking that we’re too ‘busy’ to focus on the details of execution. But remember that skill – effective execution, not luck – will drive your success.