Seven Deadly Sins and the Strategy Execution Blues
September 30, 2021
Hosted by William Ulrich
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Episode Description
The last 16 episodes of The North Star examined strategy execution from a variety of perspectives, looking at a diverse set of topics that included innovation, risk management, net income maximization, artificial intelligence, program execution, organizational design, the circular economy, information issues and technology challenges. Across this wide range of topics, seven self-inflicted troubling patterns or "sins" emerged. These include: the Strategy Execution Chain is Broken; Culture, Politics, and Siloes Form an Evil Triad; Good Ideas Arise Outside the C-Suite; Program Delivery Blues Undermine Strategy; Organizations Lack Holistic Perspective; Data is the Weak Link in the Chain; and Strategy is Captive to Technological Immaturity. In this episode of The North Star, William Ulrich will break down each of the problematic patterns that undercut strategy execution, citing interviews he held with various experts over the past several months. While many of these strategy execution issues were identified in episode 1, the fact that experts from a wide variety of fields surfaced these same issues through widely divergent conversations was highly revealing. Correcting a problem requires identifying that problem. What organizations are doing today to execute strategy is not working because they continue to repeat the mistakes of the past. These issues are not isolated to a given industry or geography, but are rather built into how organizations think and act as a whole. Ignore these seven patterns at your peril. Or face the facts, take a realistic look into what multiple experts have repeatedly reinforced, and change course on strategy execution now.
The North Star
Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Business Channel
The North Star takes a deep dive into the topic of strategy execution, often challenging conventional wisdom for achieving an organization’s strategic vision. The host and thought leaders from multiple fields explore concepts that include rethinking innovation, increasing enterprise agility, transitioning to the circular economy, managing enterprise risk and becoming a cognitive enterprise. Setting sights on one’s “north star” is only half the story. Decades of experience point to the headwinds organizations have faced in pursuit of their strategic vision. To that end, the North Star examines how organizations can more effectively deliver on critical business strategies in these uncertain times. The show tackles intractable challenges that many organizations have historically sidestepped, such as optimizing major program investments and untangling high risk technology deployments. While the show often points toward the road less traveled, that road that can make all the difference.
William Ulrich
William Ulrich is President of Tactical Strategy Group, Inc., Cofounder of Business Architecture Associates, President and Cofounder of the Business Architecture Guild and Cutter Consortium Fellow. As a management consultant for more than 40 years, Mr. Ulrich continues to serve as advisor, mentor and workshop leader to corporations and governments worldwide. He is a thought leader in strategy execution, business transformation, business architecture and transformation oversight. Mr. Ulrich has the unique ability to engage executives and practitioners across business and IT boundaries to facilitate and streamline ecosystem-wide transformation. His transformation workshops and lectures have been widely attended by organizations worldwide. Mr. Ulrich blends his IT transformation expertise with his extensive business architecture and business transformation experience to deliver end-to-end solutions that are fully aligned to business strategy. He has authored or coauthored multiple books and transformation methodologies and was an originating contributor to “A Guide to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge.” Prior to founding Tactical Strategy Group in 1990, Mr. Ulrich served as management consultant, spending the bulk of the 1980s with KPMG where he helped mature its software reengineering practice. His latest writings focus on the cognitive enterprise, transitioning to the circular economy and business-driven IT architecture transformation.
