Six informed automotive aftermarket insiders weighed-in on where strategy execution fizzles. While everyone agrees deployment matters, how do other classic approaches about alignment, planning, communication, performance and management shape a viable launch? Their insights are worth sharing, particularly as a Harvard Business Review (HBR) case study has previously contested traditional wisdom. What follows is how the HBR report sees execution, and what should happen next.
Some believe execution and stakeholder alignment operate in tandem. What might impede progress?
HBR’s findings: A vertical goal incentive with a balanced scorecard may be misplaced. Instead, they suggest a flattened structure that links strategy to activity across all organizational lines. Inside a department, managers felt they could rely on their bosses and also receive staff support. But they couldn’t depend on other departments, let alone partnerships with suppliers or customer accounts. Wasted efforts and conflicts arose from a failure to coordinate despite the weight of the performance indicators to keep opposing forces in harmony.
Does repeated communication always produce understanding throughout an organization?
Bob Hall, Global Product Manager for Schumacher Electric Corporation: “Only if the communication is clear and relevant. Many times there is a gap between what is being said and what is being understood. The communication must also be relevant and honest. There must be room for two-way and not just one-way conversations.”
HBR’s findings: Bombarding staffers with relentless communication limits strategy execution. Some managers believe reciting company priorities and mission works. It is complicated enough when executives frequently change their messages. One reason why holding meetings or sending e-mails yields mediocre results is that these attempts are measured by the quantity of outbound communications. HBR suggests flipping the metric by how well the person on the receiving end can name the objective.
Must execution stick with the agreed upon plan?
Mike Palm, Vice President of Marketing & Sales for CRP Automotive: ”It is important to note that being flexible and/or changing the plan does not mean chasing every wildcard idea or thought that comes up during the execution stage. You need to have good situational awareness.”
HBR’s findings: Agility is critical to execution. Given unpredictable market behaviors, managers wanted the space for experimentation, but wished for a structure to make an impactful real-time change, realizing the direct impact on budgetary resources of people, attention and money. A one-off injection of these resources was perceived as unsustainable in a fluid marketplace, which is why some executives preferred a continual drip of funding and human support. Equally important is timing. Being too late to pounce on an opportunity or capture the wrong one can bust the budget. Many of this report’s managers desired the authority to obtain funds and staffing to shift across units to allow them to quickly adapt while adhering to company plans.
Can a performance-driven company ruin execution?
HBR’s findings: Employees may game performance at the cost of sacrificing coordination. The elements of coordination like agility, teamwork, and ambition wind up lost. Albeit essential for financial purposes, performance by numbers tends to derail execution because employees are risk averse to the negative consequences by setting a goal too high. HBR advocates a system where bosses nurture and reward their employees willing to experiment when a situation changes. Within these open confines, these non-financial rewards incentives should include how well groups collaborate and coordinate amongst themselves.
Should execution be driven from the top?
Bob Hall of Schumacher Electric Corp.: “Having senior management buy in helps everyone understand the importance and forces corporate compliance. It many times avoids turf wars and instead pulls teams together.”
Jon Rubich of Insights2Action: “Supporting execution is not good enough. Senior management should lead the process by holding the stakeholders accountable on a predetermined basis. If not, regardless of what senior management says, they will be disengaged and execution will suffer.”
HBR’s findings: The respondents were conflicted whether execution should be led by middle management or directed from the top. Some employees value the singular CEO leading the charge. But once the hero departs the scene, the discipline of execution can unravel unless another inspirational person fills the void. A top-down executive team may quickly churn out positive results, but HBR warns, that departmental conflicts may flare-up over the long run if middle management gets overridden by their bosses.
Some people favor middle management because they are wired into the daily buzz. Most perform at their best when their junior peers have their backs covered. Inside some companies, some bosses use subject matter experts to help guide the department. But no clarity is given when settling an unresolved issue between departments with competing agendas. In this scenario, respondents were most united in wanting an upper level role model and a support system to synch coordination.
What next?
Something can be done about threading these challenges into a unified framework — namely a written guideline that appeals to planners. As HBR notes, readers can find endless articles and texts on strategy, but so few on execution. While this vision of a rules-based format is a sticky task, an intimate understanding of these challenges will for sure minimize the hard work of baking this gooey concept into a durable structure.
Practical suggestion number one involves those who drive execution. Those corporate captains beholden to stakeholders should be the ones accountable for the outcome of seamless deployment. The seeds for cultivating peer-to-peer engagement should reflect what these six industry experts have previously voiced, which indeed, confirm HBR’s March 2015 reporting of 8,000 manager’s experiences. Between an involved leadership team and their direct reports who are closest to the action, this guide should be the precursor to strategy. It should capitalize on opportunities that align with organizational vision. Digging for actionable insights can break ground where coordination, agility and communication lay fallow on the organizational field.
In the quest for interdependency across all lines, this book must require objective fact gathering that resonates among the participants. Inquire what it would take to actively engage employees who do not regularly function across departments. Ask them what concepts like “structure” and “process” means. This book should define what coordination, agility and communication looks like. Going further begin asking “Why?” For good reason Trevor Potter believes employees will want to know why their executional roles will benefit the overall scheme.
While balanced scorecards, as Jon Rubich advocates, play a big role, other types of yardsticks that track cross-functional performance between departments, or a system that expands space for agility in unexpected events should be addressed. For all of the complexity that has been heaped on, the grand prize should be awarded to those who simplify a memorable marching order that clarifies the launch. Deservedly so, Potter and Rubich are spot-on for encouraging a culture that embodies transparency.
Auto care industry consultants may seem the best candidates to devise strategy execution. And there are some qualified category management groups that have made some earlier attempts. But to become industry specific and then pull the trigger — that’s where the research starts and where collective prioritization brings tremendous value. All said, kudos to whomever best stitches a process that integrates people, processes and resources into one powerful asset.
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