1 

NEW RELEASED PUBLICATION - EXECUTING YOUR STRATEGY How to Break it Down & Get it Done

by Mark Morgan, Raymond E. Levitt, William Malek

Price: R345.00 ISBN: 9781591399568 Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing

The Global Business landscape is littered with expensive, well intended strategies that failed in the execution phase. Some make the front pages and the news.  Many more die quietly or simply disappear into desk drawers and forgotten Power Point presentations.  All represent a significant drain on resources that could have been used more profitably elsewhere.  The spectacular flameouts of Carly Fiorina at HP, John Akers at IBM, and Pehr Gyllenhammar at Volvo are merely a few high-profile examples among thousands of CEOs whose strategies fail every year because of poor execution.

Corporations spend about $100 billion a year on management consulting and training, most of it aimed at creating brilliant strategy. Business schools unleash throngs of aspiring strategists and big-picture thinkers into the corporate world every year.  Yet studies have found that less than 10 percent of effectively formulated strategies carry through to successful implementation.  So something like 90 percent of company consistently fail to execute strategies effectively.
Why?

Often because leaders failed to identify and invest in the full range of the projects required to support those strategies.  Even as strategists break their plans into doable chunks, they seldom work with project leaders effectively.  Many leaders neglect to revise their company’s strategic portfolio to fit the demands of their dynamic environment.  And they lose touch with strategic initiatives long before outputs are transferred and outcomes are realized in operations.

In Executing Your Strategy, Mark Morgan, Raymond Levitt, and William Malek show you how to overcome these barriers in your organisation.  The authors identify the six INVEST imperatives that will enable you to do the right strategic projects – and do those projects right:

Ideation: Clarify and communicate your company’s purpose, identity, and long-range intention.

Nature: Align your strategy with your company’s culture and structure.

Vision: Define clear goals and metrics supporting the strategy.

Engagement: Through portfolio management, do the right projects required to carry out your strategy.

Syntheses: Execute projects and programs the right way, in alignment with your portfolio.

Transition: Move the results of your projects and programs into the mainstream of your company’s operations.

Filled with practical advice and examples from companies as diverse as AT&T. American Power Conversion, and DPR Construction, this new resource shows you how to make strategy happen in your organisation.

Mark Morgan is Chief Learning Officer at IPSolutions Inc. and the Practice Director of the Stanford Advanced Project Management Program.

Raymont E. Levitt is a Professor in Stanford University’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and Academic Director of the Stanford Advanced Project Management Program.

William Malek is Strategy Execution Officer for Strategy2Reality LLC, an independent consultant and trainer, and former CEO of IPSolutions, Inc. He was the Stanford APM Program Director from 2002 to 2006.

All titles featured in this issue are available to order. Click here to view other publications


MORE BOOK REVIEWS:

• BUSINESS LEADERSHIP - A Jossey-Bass reader
• JUDGEMENT How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls - Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis
• ASSESSMENT CENTRES Unlocking Potential for Growth - Sandra Schlebusch and Gert Roodt
  

1