High performance doesn’t happen by chance. It’s the product of deliberate strategy, flawless execution, and empowered people working in harmony.
No team ends up with improved performance, employee engagement, and business outcomes by accident. It takes clear effort and focus for leaders to coordinate the strategic vision, precise execution, and talented teams necessary to drive tangible results.
While the high-level strategy offers a guiding light for teams to follow, leaders must find ways to effectively motivate and align individuals with high-level goals to ensure organizational success.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Understanding the Relationship Between Strategy and Execution
In simple terms, strategy provides the “what”. It gives teams an overall direction to follow, though it may not necessarily paint the picture of “how”. In short strategy is the plan and execution is the process by which we make sure the plan happens.
For example, an online retailer might adopt the strategy to “Become the leading sustainable fashion brand for Gen Z.” This informs everyone on the team what the high-level goal is and the general direction for the brand. However, it doesn’t lay out a clear path or steps they need to take to achieve this.
This is where the concept of execution comes into play. Execution is what supports the overall strategy through a concrete series of tasks, processes, or procedures to reach the end goal. Without it, teams will see the flashing light (the strategy) at the top of the mountain, but they’ll lack the proper roadmap (the execution) to get there.
In the case of the online fashion retailer, effective execution might look like sourcing sustainable apparel, building a user-friendly website that displays the company’s sustainability ratings, and creating social media campaigns targeting young consumers.
A plan without process is just theory; a process without a plan is directionless effort.Tweet
The Critical Role of People in Strategy Execution
Of course, neither strategy nor execution exists in a vacuum—they depend entirely on people.
Without the right talent to execute the business strategy, teams will have a hard time reaching their goals. However, simply hiring talented people on staff is not enough to achieve business objectives.
Employees must have a clear understanding of the strategy in the first place and see how their unique role supports it. This requires leaders to clearly communicate with team members about the broader objectives of the business and the importance of their individual contributions.
For instance, if a tech company has a strategy to build brand loyalty, the roles of the customer service representative and the software engineer clearly differ. However, they can both contribute to improving the user experience and supporting the overall strategy in their own ways.
At the same time, businesses can get the most out of their people power by empowering staff with the proper tools, training, and resources to support execution. This has a direct tie to performance management and business success, with some sources stating that organizations that invest in employee training see higher profitability than teams that do not.
Neither plan nor process exists in a vacuum. They depend entirely on people.Tweet
Why Culture Is the Backbone of Successful Execution
Company culture is more than a buzzword—it provides a strong foundation for employee productivity, engagement, and well-being, all of which influence their motivation and behaviors in the workplace. It’s how employees learn what is acceptable performance, what’s expected of them, and the type of support they can expect from their peers in pursuit of their goals.
Culture looks different for every organization, though it’s important to recognize that the key vision, values, and practices the company adopts all help define the culture, whether done intentionally or not.
A thriving culture is mutually beneficial to the organization and its people. An organization with a strong culture focused on employee satisfaction will help people feel more appreciated and improve their engagement on the job. In turn, employees will feel more compelled to support the company’s goals and strategic execution.
In the absence of a strong culture, employees may feel unmotivated and less accountable for their work. Their productivity and performance can suffer as a result, making it more difficult for the organization to execute on its strategic vision.
Drive engagement, ownership, and performance at every level of your growing organization
How to Align Teams Around a Unified Strategy
Though the organization may have a clearly defined vision, each employee or department may have their own motivations and interests that influence their priorities and behaviors on the job. While this isn’t necessarily something teams can avoid, it can create rifts and cause a dip in productivity and performance if teams aren’t aligned on how to execute the strategy.
So, with each staff member and department navigating their own wants and ideas, how can leaders unify the team in support of one central strategy or idea?
As mentioned above, it’s important for leaders to clearly and consistently communicate what the strategy is and the “why” behind it to foster employee engagement and motivation. This helps give different teams and departments a shared vision from the start and agree on one common goal or outcome.
Allowing key stakeholders to offer feedback or input helps encourage buy-in to the unified missions and enables each department to feel committed to the strategy.
Measuring Success: Tracking Performance Across Strategy, Execution, and People
Leaders need a tangible and objective way to measure performance and track the success of their strategy implementation. While this will look different for each organization based on their specific strategy and objectives, teams of any size can benefit from using the objectives and key results (OKRs) goal-setting model.
OKRs help companies identify what they want to achieve and define the key results they’ll use to track their progress and performance. It’s a powerful framework that encourages alignment and ties individual performance to top-level goals and strategy.
What does this look like in practice?
A good OKR example is an organization that sets an objective to exceed quarterly sales performance targets. There is a clear goal here that both the sales team and individual sales reps can work towards. For an individual rep, they might define key results in support of this objective that include:
- Achieving 110% of their personal sales quota for the quarter, compared to 80% last quarter.
- Generating 20 qualified referrals, an increase from last quarter of 15 qualified referrals.
These are objective metrics that can be used to gauge the rep’s performance throughout the quarter and provide accountability in support of the organization’s broader strategy and goals.
Compared to traditional performance management frameworks that rely on quarterly or annual reviews, OKRs offer a more agile and flexible approach that helps employees and leaders make adjustments in real-time.
Real-World Example of the Power of Alignment
Starbucks offers an example of how organizations and individual team members can align their vision and mission to result in tangible business outcomes.
The Starbucks mission is “To be the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world, inspiring and nurturing the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.”
To deliver on this mission, Starbucks needs each store to embody the statement and offer a great customer experience. Starbucks uses a Customer Connection Score (net promoter score) to gauge how well the store connects with each customer.
Customer survey feedback covers a variety of topics from individual store experiences to others addressing broader company perceptions. The Customer Connection Score stands out as a key performance indicator. This is used by leaders to understand how well a store is performing, beyond just sales figures and profitability.
Final Thoughts: Driving Sustainable High Performance Through Alignment
Finding a way to align individual performance with high-level business objectives requires precise strategy and execution. When done effectively, it creates a strong culture of improvement where employees see the importance of their work and how it supports the overall strategy and success.
Over time, an OKR goal-setting model helps employees see the tangible impact of their efforts on business outcomes, creating a sustainable path of continual performance improvement. With platforms like Profit.co, you can set, discuss, and socialize your plan; project manage their execution with detailed process systems; and set your people for success with integrated performance management.