Martin begins by saying he is not a fan of the concept of ‘execution’; differentiating between ‘formulation’ and ‘execution’ is a false distinction because both involve the same sort of choices. A better way to think about ‘execution’, he says, is to recognize that everybody in an organisation makes important choices, not just those formulating strategy. You must make the choices that attach to your position and influence the choices of those who are accountable to you.

Martin suggests four reasons that explain more than 80% of failure to get things done.

The first two relate to what Martin calls choice chartering:

1. Your definition of victory isn’t clear and fully understood by your subordinates. As a result, they make choices that relate to meeting their target, which isn’t consistent with yours. This may be a matter of the standard they are aiming for compared to your expectations or their sense of urgency may differ from yours.
2. To address this problem Martin suggests giving more time and attention to clarifying for your subordinates what success looks like. He recommends doing this in writing, starting by asking them to write down what they hear from you, then editing it back and forth until you and they are entirely on the same page.
3. Subordinates escape to ‘victimisation’, claiming, for example, a lack of tools, resourcing or authority to accomplish the assigned task.
4. Martin suggests that—having clarified the definition of success—this problem can be overcome by asking subordinates to think about whether they have the resources necessary to accomplish the goal, and then come back and talk to you. This will give you a chance to fix any resourcing or decision rights issues before they become problems.
5. If you fundamentally disagree with their view of the resources and/or decision rights needed to get the job done, you have given yourself a chance to recognise that they are not up to the task.
6. The other two reasons Martin suggests relate to skills deficits:
7. The subordinate may lack the skill of prioritisation and be vulnerable (from your point of view) to distraction. Noting that people generally prefer to do their easiest or most enjoyable tasks first, your task may be in your subordinate’s hardest/most laborious category. They may understand fully what is required and plan to get to it, but are for the moment distracted by more attractive work.
8. On spotting this kind of slippage, Martin proposes that you clear their plate of everything except the hard/laborious task currently being left for later. In the short term, Martin suggests it is better to give the remaining tasks to others rather than assume that the subordinate has the skills to juggle priorities themselves. They can be taught how to manage distractions and prioritise effectively on a different timeframe, and can learn that dealing with the hardest part of the task first other things often fall into place, making them easier.
9. Subordinates are unskilled in the choice chartering process outlined above. If they are not yet skilled in choice chartering, their subordinates will be similarly confused about the outcome they are working towards and/or lack the resources/decision authority to complete their work.

His proposed remedy is to mentor them by:

• being transparent and explicit about your choice chartering process. Explain what you are doing and why, and how you are doing it, so that they learn while watching you
• offering to help them with their choice chartering. Martin suggests doing this by role-playing, with you acting as their subordinate.

The gist of Martin’s message is that you should first have a coherent, logical strategy. Without that, it is not worth even trying to get it implemented.

Secondly, never tell your subordinates to ‘execute’ your strategy. Tell them you need them to make choices that will bring your choices to life. That means you need to be very clear as to what choices you need them to make, with what targeted outcomes and within what deadlines. In the process, help them to become better ‘choice charterers’ themselves.

Finally, either provide the resources and decision authority they say they need to be able to meet your expectations or explain why not and come to an agreement on what is possible. If you can’t do that then all bets are off.

Notes:

(1) Roger Martin. ’Getting it Done. Medium, 8 May 2022. See also, for example, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton (2000) The Knowing-Doing Gap. Boston, Harvard Business School Press and David Maister (2008) Strategy and the Fat Smoker. Boston, The Spangle Press