The problem is not a lack of theories, tools, or programs. The problem is EXECUTION.
In research for his recent book, Execution Revolution, author Gary Harpst discovered:
- An astounding 90% of well-formulated strategies fail due to poor execution!
- Only 5% of employees understand their corporate strategy! Unbelievable!
- Only 3% of executives think their company is very successful at executing strategies, while 62% think they’re only moderately successful, or worse.
In short, read all you want on the subject of programs such as Baldrige, Lean and TQM. You’ll find the subject matter interesting, and you’ll enjoy learning about the many successes of those who have successfully executed such programs.
Read about knowledge management, data mining tools and scorecards for performance measurement and management. You’ll learn a great deal.
Investigate new models of training and employee development as well as personal and executive coaching. In the end, you will have read, researched, investigated and probably learned much. Now you KNOW what to do. However, you have invested a great deal of time, energy and effort to no avail at this point. True success and ROI emerges only when you successfully execute what you’ve learned. The “knowing-doing gap” must be closed at every level of the organization in order to enjoy true success.
— Per Harry K. Jones, at AchieveMax, with hat tip to Skip Reardon via twitter @sreardon.
2 Responses to “How to close “the knowing-doing gap?” Just do it. Do it now.”
John Krech
Great post – wow. Businesses need to utilize tools that make implementing strategies such as Lean or improving economic value added (balanced scorecards)easy.
Businesses need to align every aspect of their operations with these objectives and leverage the appropriate technology tools can make this feasible.
For example, our solution specializes in guiding small businesses to optimize their inventory peak financial performance (maximum economic value added) using color coded alerts or Lean Kanbans.
In three clicks of a mouse once a week, a technology can close the knowing and doing gap around the right metric with the right tools.
In other words, by creating an easy to use process that first creates knowledge and then create actions, one can close the gaps in the execution of their strategic plan.
Tom Hood
Rick, great post and the statistics are a wake up call. We call this “alignment” – does th strategy cascade though the organization? Can all of your people understand the strategy well enough to apply it to changing circumstances and scenarios?
Worse yet, many CPA firms and small business have no strategic plan and no communication / linkage to their staff – very dangerous in these turbulent times. Futurist Watts Wacker said it well, “If you do not have a vision (strategy) for the future, you will just get sucked into someone else’s vision (customers, staff, suppliers).”