Executive Interviews: Interview with James M Higgins on Strategy Execution
September 2008 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Dr. James Higgins
Dr James M Higgins is Cornell Professor of Innovation Management at Crummer Graduate School of Business
Rollins College Florida.

middle management follow up are the cornerstones of engaging employees in pursuit of vision and strategy. The communication strategy is absolutely vital. The strategy and the need for the strategymust be communicated over and over. You cannot overcommunicate. If you think of communicating strategy as a marketing process, the marketing rule of thumb is that a message must be communicated seven times before there is product recognition. The same would be true with strategy in its infancy. The message communicated is also critical. Research indicates that to be most effective, the changes in strategy must not be perceived by employees as very different from what is already being done. The only exceptions are those circumstances where the firms future is obviously hanging in the balance and radical change is necessary.

While participation has recently come under fire is not being as effective in securing change as it was previously thought, it is still a viable approach at the front line level where it is critical for buy in. Education of "who, what, cowhere, when, how and why," come through the communication strategy. If you want employees to buy in, it is absolutely necessary that the behaviors required for implementing the strategy be part of their performance management system objectives and related reward system. "If its not on my performance appraisal, why should I bother?" is a prevalent attitude. So is, "Whats in it for me?" So rewards are vital, even if the only reward is keeping your job. The connection to strategy success must be made. And, at every level of management, managers need to check back with their team members periodically and often, not just annually, with respect to their understanding and accomplishment levels of the strategy. Finally, sound leadership and the management of cultural artifacts are vital to success.

• Mostly strategies are made by one team(top management), and they are supposed to be executed by another team. Do you think companies can achieve better results if they combine strategy formulation and strategy execution, wherein the same team is made responsible for both strategy formulation and strategy execution? Do you see this thing happening anywhere?
  For the most part, I do not see the value of having the same team both formulate and execute a strategy. To some extent this happens because top management must lead its direct reports in the execution effort, but I cannot envision a situation in which front line execution would ever be done by top management, nor should it. (Not sure if this is the interpretation that your question intended.)

  The closest corporate behavior I have witnessed compared to what you describe comes in product/service development and project management situations where there is often a more hands on approach to execution by the senior managers of those efforts.This is especially true where closeknit groups of product designers and developers, alongwith teammembers from marketing, finance, operations, and even customers closely guide the entire project up to the actual manufacturing of a product or delivery of the service. This is common when product development occurs in special innovation labs far away from normal product development areas. Motorolas highly successful Razr cell phone product line was created in such a lab but so was its less than average Pebble cell phone.

• In one of your brilliantly written articles, you have espoused 8 S's of successful strategy execution. What are these 8 Ss? What importance do they hold for global and domestic firms operating in complex environments?
  The 8 Ss are: Strategy and purpose, organizational Structure, Systems and processes, leadership Style, Staff, reSources, Shared values, and Strategic performance. If the first seven Ss are all aligned then the final S will result. Strategy begins with vision and mission, but for practical purposes, it is the sought after strategic performance objectives that drive strategy formulation. The other Ss must be aligned with strategy if these objectives are to be achieved. To oversimplify but not too much, CEOs and other strategists are usually confronted with organizational structures, systems and processes, dominant leadership styles used by the managers in the organization, staff, resource allocations, and shared values that were put into place to achieve other strategies. Some of these Ss may have been in place for decades. Under these circumstances, the contents of these other Ss were designed to reinforce old strategies, not the current one. And in so doing, they significantly detract fromthe chances for success of a new strategy. Perhaps even more egregious, they are not co ordinated with one another which would enable a quicker fix, but rather they typically support different previous strategies.

  The eight Ss are important to both global and domestic firms operating in complex environments because they enable better execution in these environments by identifying what must be aligned and as ameans of coordinating that effort. Whether domestic or global, the specifics are left to the firm, but a road map has been provided. It is in thinking through the alignment issues that better adaptation to specific environments occurs. My assessment survey for measuring the context for innovation in an organization contains seven questions for each of the 7 Ss that lead to strategic performance. The specifics of these questions have been adjusted to meet the demands of varying domestic and foreign situations, yet focusing on the same issues. Strategic innovation performance is measured by a different set of questions along with a set of performance metrics.

1. Business Strategy Case Studies
2. ICMR Case Collection
3. Case Study Volumes