Strategy and execution are equally important in business, but most people don't think deeply enough about execution, which is a mistake. It doesn't matter how great your strategy is if you can't execute it. And solid execution alone isn't enough for an organization to innovate and succeed. Organizations that can develop an excellent strategy and execute it well gain a competitive advantage over those that have great ideas but cannot effectively implement them. Once you've developed the right strategy to grow your business, execution is critically important as you scale.
The following activities will help you determine a strategy that is worth pursuing. They will also help you, your team, and your organization figure out how to execute and overcome challenges along the way.
SET A CAREER PATH FOR EXECUTION EXCELLENCE
Having a clear path to management roles can help your people learn by doing. Each career level will prepare them to take on more responsibility. As they learn how to better execute, they will also think more strategically. Consider the Snowflake sales levels, which support salespeople as they gain experience and are promoted to more senior roles (see the accompanying figure).
Establish a path for your managers to learn execution through experience. It should progress three or four levels to prepare your executive team to make decisions, ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
