Adapt to Win

Chapter 1Corporate Strategy and the Strategy Realization Problem

Seventy percent of corporate strategic initiatives fail, and 70% of corporations fail to realize their strategic objectives. There are several root causes for this dismal performance, but most are manifestations of ineffective strategy implementation. Weakness in critical strategy processes allows your strategic intent to succumb to the malign entropic force of strategy decay.

This book describes the key problems common in strategy deployment and execution and provides an integrated framework for ensuring the efforts and investments the firm undertakes deliver the strategic outcomes desired. This is the first and only book that provides a comprehensive process and techniques to align investment and capacity allocation decisions to corporate strategy through the effective use of objectives and key results (OKRs). It provides a model to help organizations realize their strategic objectives by ensuring their portfolio investments and employees’ work efforts (payroll spend) are focused on critical strategic outcomes.

Before we dive in, I will clarify a couple of words you’ll be seeing often in this book:

• Strategy realization is defined as the end state of successfully making the company’s strategic objectives and leadership’s strategic intent into the company’s current reality. The firm has successfully implemented its strategy.
• Strategy implementation is defined as the processes and capabilities required to enable ...