Top Leadership Problem – Poor Implementation of Strategy
Top Leadership Problem Poor Implementation of Strategy
We are watching the spinning gate for top officers whirl faster and faster. Two-thirds of all large firms globally have fired their top officer at least once since 1995. More than 1,000 CEOs have left office over the past 12 months. In 2000, over 40 CEOs of the top 200 companies were fired. When 20 percent of the most powerful business leaders in America lose their jobs, there is a problem!
What is the so wrong? What is the overwhelming problem? In the article "Why CEOs Fail" published in Fortune was asked "suppose what brought down all these powerful and undeniable talented executives was just one common failing?"
Top business consultants have argued for business to better strategize, align, and implement.
Workers are pleading for focus, clearer expectations, and the opportunity to contribute to that focus. A FranklinCovey study evaluated the characteristics of 52,000 managers across hundreds of organizations. More than 400,000 of the managers' associates were asked to rank the managers. The areas where managers scored the lowest included:
- Prioritizing work so time is spent on most important issues (related to strategy)
- Setting clear expectations with employees (related to strategy)
- Providing feedback on how to improve
- Building teamwork by maximizing the talents of the workgroup
Gallup studied more than 80,000 managers from 400 companies to find out what leadership behaviors are most effective. From that, Gallup identified twelve key behaviors that were most successful. Here are four of those:
- aligning each employee with the mission
- letting employees know what is expected
- tapping into the talents of employee
- talking with the employee about their progress
Any good CEO would ask the question, "how pervasive is the focus and execute problem, and what is potential payback?" The following data begins to open a vision of how deep and broad the opportunity might be:
A Harvard Business Review article in February 2002, "Beware the Busy Manager" summarizes a ten-year management study. The findings were that fully 90% of managers squander their time in all sorts of ineffective activities. In other words, a mere 10% of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner.
FranklinCovey found that employees typically only spent 40% of time on productive activities.
Knowledge workers constitute 60% of a typical workforce, and waste up to 60% of their time on low value activities.
Management consultants report that less than ten percent of the business strategies developed get executed.
THE FIX
The answer is an firm where each employee knows what is most important in their being able to make a difference.
David Willden has been an senior executive with international consulting firms.
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