Discussion Post responses

Do some research and find some strategy executions. Describe two of the strategies. What do your findings reveal about the importance of the strategy executions you selected? Why are they important to strategic success?

1.

Translating a plan into action can be one of the more difficult tasks for any organization. Execution is essential, as strategy without execution is little more than conversational banter that will lead to no positive organizational change. From my research, two of the most interesting approaches were the MOVE and the alignment execution strategies. Both deal with a fundamental problem with execution – stalling out in the middle.

Developed by Azzarello, MOVE is an acronym for middle, organization, valor, and everyone (2017). Azzarello argues effective execution requires leaders to fill their team with the right people, to empower middle management to take initiative towards strategic goals, to face the hardest challenges with persistence, and to engage everyone on the team towards the overall strategy. This is a useful framework, as it simplifies problems that an organization may encounter into one of several categories, and it empowers mid-level leaders to make decisions without waiting on instruction from senior leaders.

Problems usually fall into a limited set of categories – lack of resources, lack of training, lack of time, or lack of effort. In my work, I have observed strategies fail to materialize when they stall in the middle because of decision paralysis. However, execution must be a continuous process (Srivastava & Sushil, 2017). Stalling tends to occur with mid-level leaders who do not understand or think strategically. The MOVE framework emphasizes continuous progress and acting, instead of waiting on answers (Azzarello, 2017). Execution doesn’t need to be complicated; in fact, it shouldn’t be in order to keep everyone rowing towards the same end state.

According to Srivastava & Shushil, effective alignment is the foundation of effective strategy execution (2017). Alignment refers to aligning departments, resource commitment, polices, operations, structure, best practices, and community orientation with strategy. The alignment execution strategy proposes a useful set of factors for consideration. In essence, its main purpose is to identify a checklist of general categories that can stall execution, so that leadership can adapt and overcome. In doing so, it offers a solution similar approach to the MOVE framework.

2.

Good evening,

In my research this week I found two strategy executions that use the letter “A” for each thought/idea regarding the execution of a strategy.

Giesen et al. (2010) provide the following three “A”s:

Aligned: Getting everyone on the same strategic page (so to speak); internally this should come from leadership and disseminate to all that are in the business and those who come in contact with the business (contractors, customers, etc.).
Analytical: Looking to future strategies; the ability to foresee how finances will provide an opportunity to grow further; accurate and timely measuring of data to be able to make needed adjustments.
Adaptable: Willingness to make the needed changes to strategy; the ability to change course if need be or manage things currently with the ability to be open to other innovative ways.

Snell et al. (2019a, 2019b) provide the following four “A”s:

Alignment: (This mirrors “Aligned” presented above.)
Ability: Having the right people for the right job; starts with leadership and feeding into who will lead next as well as promoting collaboration across all positions.
Architecture: Processes, systems, etc. promote the involvement of all and helps with efficiency and positive organizational culture; knowing what needs to change or be rebuilt to make this happen.
Agility: (This mirrors “Adaptable” presented above.)

These two common “A”s speak to the business’s ability to have all employees and stakeholders going the same direction and the willingness to change course together if needed. Both of these really rely on the leadership of the business and although easy to say this is what needs to be done, it is another thing to execute it.

SAMPLE SOLUTION

Response to Prompt 1 The author rightly responds to the discussion post by mentioning the two strategies as MOVE and the alignment of execution strategies. The two selected strategies deal with the fundamental problem of execution which is stalling out in the middle. According to the author, MOVE is an acronym for middle, organization, valor and everyone. The author supports the two strategies with evidence from literature making their applicability evidence-based. For use of MOVE is supported by Azzarello, (2017) who argues that the effective use of MOVE requires leaders to have an effective workforce and the leaders must be persistent in executing their roles. The author also supports the second strategy with the work of Srivastava & Shushi, (2017) by…