Executing Your Strategy: How to Break It Down and Get It Done

by Mark Morgan, Raymond E. Levitt, Raymond Elliot Levitt

Why do businesses consistently fail to execute their competitive strategies? Because leaders don't identify and invest in the full range of projects and programs required to align the organization with its strategy. Moreover, even when strategy makers do break their plans down into doable chunks, they seldom work with project leaders to prioritize strategic investments and assure that needed resources are applied in priority order. And they often neglect to revise the strategic portfolio to fit the demands of a dynamic environment, or to stay connected to strategic projects through completion, as new products, services, skills and capabilities are transferred into operations.

In Executing Your Strategy , Mark Morgan, Raymond Levitt, and William Malek present six imperatives that enable you to do the right strategic projects—and do those projects right. And it is no accident that the six imperatives combine to create the acronym Ideation—Clarify and communicate purpose, identity and long range intention; Nature—Develop alignment between strategy, structure and culture based on ideation; Vision—Create clear goals and metrics aligned to strategy and guided by ideation—Engagement—Do the right projects based on the strategy through portfolio management; Do projects and programs right, in alignment with portfolio; and Move the project and program outputs into operations where benefit is realized. Full of intriguing company examples and practical advice, this crucial new resource shows you how to make strategy happen in your organization.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Management, Leadership

290 pages, Hardcover

First published November 26, 2007

Reviews

[Fred Cheyunski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful Strategy, Organization and Project Modeling Connections - This reviewer concurs with most of the others reviews in their coverage and ratings of this book, i.e. the benefit of a framework like INVEST and the importance of developing an appropriate portfolio of projects to assure that business strategies are executed.

However, what are particularly helpful to this reviewer are the connections the authors make with the different types of business strategies, value disciplines and organization characteristics previously articulated by Geoffrey Moore in his "Living on the Fault Line" and "Dealing with Darwin."

More specifically, the authors indicate pursuing different strategies require varying emphases on projects and organizational functions. For starters, disruptive innovation strategies call for balanced matrix organizations with equal accents on projects and functions. Customer intimacy strategies necessitate strong matrices with more attention on projects than functions. Project leadership strategies require weak matrices where neither projects nor functions dominate. Finally operational excellence strategies dictate hierarchies where functions are in control vs. projects.

Also important is that the authors show how computer modeling and simulation can be used to determine optimal structure and sizing. They present ways consultants have worked with managers and staff to use such tools in examining project organizing options. There are discussions of examples that show a high degree of participation in considering alternate models and making choices.

Look at this book for additional elaboration and useful references.

[Harish B · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s highly insightful read. The worksheets at the end of chapters contribute to the practicality of the book. It’s not an easy read though.

[Hákon Jónsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, only thing is that the examples are a bit to outdated. But the method taught in the book is great.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this volume, Morgan, Levitt, and Malek focus their attention on "engaging in strategic project portfolio management for successful execution" and more specifically on the six domains of the strategic execution network, their acronym INVEST: Ideation (clarify and communicate purpose, identity and long- range intention), Nature (develop alignment between and among strategy, structure, and culture based on ideation), Vision (create clear goals and metrics aligned to strategy and guided by ideation), Engagement (engage the strategy via the investment stream), Synthesis (do projects and programs right, in alignment with portfolio), and Transition (transfer the projects and program outputs into operations where their benefits can be realized). Morgan, Levitt, and Malek devote a separate chapter to each. In the final chapter, they respond to a question their reader has no doubt by then asked: "Where should we start?" Although much (if not most) of this material examines strategy execution in an organization, the authors use Lance Armstrong as an example of how an individual can also "align all the [strategy-making] domains and invest every precious minute, and every personal resource, accordingly."

The authors make skillful use of dozens of Tables and Figures throughout their lively narrative that consolidate key points. In Chapter 3, for example, the Tables illustrate "The four archetypes of organizational culture" (Page 101). In the same chapter, the Figures include "The nature imperative: Invest in projects to align culture, structure, and strategy" (Page 94) and “Align strategy with culture: Charting your culture egg" (Page 101). The other five chapters have equally informative Tables and Figures; also additional real-world examples of how some companies successfully executed strategies and other companies tried but failed to do so. In the final chapter, the authors reiterate six imperatives of strategic execution (first displayed by Table 1.1 on Page 17 and then duplicated by Table C-1, Page 241), cite several real-world examples (e.g. Airbus and the perils of misalignment), discuss Lance Armstrong and the lessons to be learned from his successful execution of various strategies, and then pose what they call six "Acid Test Questions (on Pages 256-257) that could be read first, before proceeding through the Introduction and the six chapters. I wish I had done so because they provide an especially valuable frame of reference for the wealth of information, insights, and recommendations that Morgan, Levitt, and Malek provide. Their book is a brilliant achievement.

[Chinarut · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really heavy duty book - it literally took me on the order of 6 years of picking up and putting down this book (mind you I had a lot to sort out during these years :) One of the authors, William Malek, is one of the former program director of the Advanced Project Management program at Stanford whom I got a chance to learn about while I was in Thailand while speaking to Project Management Institute (PMI) members. This material is no pushover.

That said, there is a large focus on large enterprises. I was inspired because of the story he shared on the success of the Singapore National Library Board (SNLB) - I liked the fact it was a case study at the government level and one where he wasn't bragging they used their framework - it happened to be a team already operating the way they envision. The book does indeed conclude the framework is just as relevant to individuals and small teams (the camp I'm in with enterprising souls).

I see myself reviewing this book multiple times - this isn't your casual business book you read on the beach. One of the larger insights I had in 2013 was the notion of an "output," a distinction I added to the way I see my GTD system to track those "intermediate results" and have some sense of traceability. Something I saw in 2014 is having a better sense of how a portfolio management system might work.

This review is not an attempt to summarize the book in any way but to share a few highlights that might tempt you to read it!

[Doichin Cholakov · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very practical business book. It suffers from the typical genre defining malady of trying to impose its own jargon and definitions as axiomatic, and thus to position its authors as the ultimate authority on "The Strategic Execution Framework" and "the aligning the six domains", etc. but this is a minor nuisance given the insight, neatness and compactness of the presentation.
Although published in 2007 the book is still very relevant. There is a small problem nevertheless - some of the examples of organisations that got everything right were disproved by time, like the assertion that team Armstrong‘s success resulted from good management rather than drugs, and that Yahoo‘s business model was sustainable.
I am happy to give it 5-star rating though because I find the conceptual frame it proposes really useful. It has a textbook feel, but should you be interested in more business cases you can also check out the follow up – Executing Your Business Transformation.

[Alok · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for executives and a must read if one want to learn from the vaste experience of the authors. It is a copy book facts about the corporate process of executing decisions and the frame work is also very familiar and all the past experiences can be related to the the frameworks. Need to read again. Have read the summary which is available in kindle.

[MK · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't say enough good things about this book. If you're a business person or lead an organization, this book is a must-read. Forgive it's awful title---it doesn't do it justice. I highlighted and annotated all over this thing and may start carrying it with me at all times like a crazy person!

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harvard Business Press' latest entry on tying Strategy to Project Management.

[Ramberto · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good framework for taking new ideas from the drawing board stage to the execution/operational phase.

[Nelson]

I found the process presented in this book for implementing strategy to be very common sense and usable....I'm using it.

[Randolph Breschini · Rating 4 out of 5]

I attended in Bangkok an American Chamber luncheon featuring William Malek, where he discussed this book.