Execution IS the Strategy

Conclusion

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

—Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, nineteenth-century Prussian field marshal

It doesn’t matter how good a leader you are if you can’t execute your strategy right now, in the moment, in a way that fits conditions as they currently exist—not as they existed five minutes ago, or five months ago, or five years ago. That kind of lag time might have been acceptable once, but the Great Recession and the banking crisis have reset our collective business reality. Today, the only logical strategy is the one that facilitates implementing your task, product, service, or offer in the smoothest, fastest, most cost-efficient way possible.

To reiterate the central thesis and title of this book, execution ...