Lawless Thinking brings you insights, tools and encouragement direct from my world of bold C-suite strategy delivery.

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TLDR:  Two tensions can break strategy execution across the organisation if not held by the CEO. But holding these tensions well is probably not how you got the CEO role.

A plan is not a strategy; a set of choices is. So strategy execution is a DARE Loop: Decisions and Actions to deliver defined Results (then Evaluate and Loop). Two CEO decisions can destroy strategy execution if the tension cannot be managed by the CEO:

1. When a non-strategic opportunity arrives that will delight shareholders and land your bonus (and tell all your people and customers that your strategic decisions are up for sale) can you identify and hold the tension?

2. When you are, possibly, the best decision-maker in the organisation, but you want a team that is accountable, takes decisions fast and escalates rarely – can you hold the tension at the precise moment when you want to ‘help’ somebody do it better?

The Price of Strategy Execution

Strategy definition is cheap and relatively easy. A document is prepared. Priorities are agreed. Now it is time to execute this for the next 2-5 years.

That execution demands a high personal price of the CEO.

The price is emotional and psychological: Enduring the holding of tensions. The payer never knows when the price will be demanded during a day, so they cannot prepare.

This price must be paid until the strategic transformation is complete. It’s a full Ironman distance of commitment, not a 5k Sunday parkrun.

The price is paid in two tensions that are particularly hard for a senior leader to pay: The payment is in surrender of CONTROL and OPPORTUNITY. The very attributes that got them to the top

Strategies Fail but Execution Fails More

Strategies can of course fail because they are poor. Jaguar’s ‘pink’ rebrand, New Coke’s launch and Operation Barbarossa being just three examples from the past 100 years. 

Strategies can fail because they are not strategies. This is common. A vision, some values and some ‘strategic priorities’ being a recognisable example.

But in my experience of working with executive teams when the strategy is not ‘firing’, and in getting deeper into an organisation to gather data about what is really going on: the CEO is often not fully aware of the price only they can pay. 

So, naturally, they are not paying it. When the tension is high – they fold.

They forget the strategic Results when the tension grows. They are seduced by short term Results. They then take very public Decisions and Actions that run counter to the strategy. Then they use the wrong Evaluation criteria (short term, not strategic) to assess their Results – and deem them a win.

Now we spiral. Let me show you how:

Price One: Holding Opportunity Tension

Strategy reduces the permitted decisions. This brings structure, clarity, direction and a narrative.

We carefully sell all that to the organisation, to suppliers and customers, and we invest accordingly. This is a truly enormous amount of work.

Inevitably a shiny new thing: a territory, product, operating model, some appealing cure for fear of lack of rapid progress or debilitating self-doubt or cashflow troubles, becomes compelling.

If the CEO cannot hold the tension when the desire to take non-strategic choices is high, then the work is undone. Everybody sees. Everybody breathes out, releases the tension and moves to short term wins.

Everybody knows the strategy was just ‘the flavour of the month’.

Of course, holding that tension, saying no to opportunity, does not feel ‘strategic’.

It feels like RISK. It feels like LOSS. It is ‘scary’. It runs counter to every survival instinct for the human being paid to manage the risk and ensure the survival. The ‘Tiger’ roars loudly.

The tension is immense. The challenge is real. Success requires immense courage to hold the line.

My dive to 101m in 2010 raised funds for paediatric medicine research after my little daughter’s recovery from serious illness.

Flowing on from that difficult time, I have supported Together for Short Lives for many years and this year they have allowed me to run the London Marathon for them!

TfSL support babies, children and young people living with life limiting conditions, their families and the professionals that care for them.  And you can support them too if you could spare a moment to sponsor my marathon run here.

Price Two: Holding Control Tension

To execute the strategy fast, you will need the correct Decision and Action being owned by the correct person – and taken as quickly as possible. Habitual escalation and meetings to bring reassurance and share the exposure of decision making with others are blockers, except where truly necessary.

And yet we are changing. There is uncertainty. There is doubt. People feel risk – they are outside of their comfort zones.

There is a real tension here. Did she really give me the power? Do I really have permission to do THIS? This is a fragile moment and extremely consequential.

It requires a cohesive executive team that exercises a discipline in devolving safe decisions and holding the tension of that devolution.

Yet many, by no means all, but many exec teams are dominated by the boss. Second-guessing the boss slows the exec’s decisions and causes tensions and resentments.

But by the time we explore the data two levels down, beneath the top 100, second guessing what the boss wants us to do is a cottage industry. Everybody wants a meeting or an escalation to be given reassurance – the CEO has set the tone and the shadow is cast.

The tension the CEO needs to hold here is to resist taking on the weight of other people’s decisions – except where vital. Resisting speaking when they can see a marginally better way – but the cost of providing that in re-taking control is greater than the benefit it will bring in ‘the better way’.

Hardest of all, this tension requires resisting deploying the very attribute that got them the job. Being a superb decision maker and technical operator who is unafraid to take big decisions.

But the big decision now is:

Will I withstand every emotion in my body telling me to seize the opportunity or to take the decision that I truly want other people to take – except when it is manifestly unsafe to do so? Or will I take the wheel – causing echoes around the organisation?

My Fortnight

The weather may have been cold, but the pace of transformation has been keeping my clients and me very warm indeed.

A recurring theme is that: it’s bold – but we cannot fail. This reality brings a focus from members of my client exec teams that is a joy to work with.

Whilst the projects are confidential, the work includes partnering with leaders accountable for accelerating the production of defence capabilities (which, having sheltered from air raids in Kyiv and Lviv last year and watched the brutality of the assaults over the winter, I believe to be non-negotiable) and shifting how decisions are made (accountability) within a large pharmaceutical organisation.

With both industries being heavily regulated, the tensions described above are large and challenging. Creating and communicating an appropriate Decision-Making Architecture with vocabulary everybody can use becomes critical.

And of course, appearing at January Kickoff events to deliver variations of my DARE or DARE: to Lead keynotes has been a complete joy. Thank you to everybody who has invited me to share their stage.

Book of the Fortnight

This week is a short film about holding strategic tension. Steve Jobs slashing product lines on his return to apple is often cited as a case study in bold strategic discipline.

I recommend watching Jony Ive describe being mentored by Jobs on holding strategic tension – on what it means and what it feels like.

Write YOUR story 🖋️

Jim