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Executive Interviews: Interview with James M Higgins on Strategy Execution
September 2008
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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. 
This is a very intuitively sound and
now research based description of
how best practices should be identified.
Best practices depend on the
firm, here the form of control, and
(my interpretation), not just on the
basic strategy being employed, that is,
asset reduction, turnaround, growth,
stabilization, or end game. Another study I have run across
which offers an additional perspective
is one reported in the June, 2008
Harvard Business Review by Gary L
Neilson, Karla L Martin, and Elizabeth
Powers. From a 17 question survey
of 26,000 people in 21 companies
they found four key traits of successful
implementation efforts: decision
rights, information, motivators, and
structure.
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About half of the items
among these 17 questions have been
touched upon in some way elsewhere
in this Interview. But several of
the items included in the decision
rights and information sections plow
new ground in the execution literature.
For eample, the following items
would not normally appear in most
materials on execution;
- Once made, decisions are rarely
second guessed;
- Managers up the line get involved
in operating decisions;
- Conflicting messages are rarely
sent to the market.
Other questions also are typical of the
execution literature. Please note that
these are not skill sets but descriptions
of final traits based on certain
behaviors. -
Tom Davenport recently argued
that strategy execution has for too
long lurched between two extremes.
One camp, which he calls "strategic
engineering," envisions strategy execution
as engineering exercise, and
views employees as cogs in a machine
well oiled by computers. The
other extreme, which he labels "strategic
anarchy," encourages executives
to simply get out of the way of
their employees entrepreneurial
and innovative energies. Neither extreme,
of course, is very useful for
organizations attempting to perform well in difficult and changing business
environments. What according
to you should be the right approach?
We have to be careful here about
which strategy is being executed in
what is described in Davenports two
terms. That is, are we talking about
corporate, business, functional, or
operational strategy. I interpret "strategic
anarchy" is described as a functional
strategy execution effort undertaken
to fulfill a business or corporate
strategy. In most cases this type of
functional strategy action will be related
to innovative new products/services
and processes which help fulfill
overall business strategy. That said, of course product/service,
process and project managers should
be strategizing and executing strategy
in so far as their direct reports are concerned,
but within their purview.
Front line employees should have access
to ways to move their ideas forward
but for the most part, front line
employees do not see the overall perspective
and few outside of product/
service, process and project leaders
and teams have the wherewithal to
effectively execute strategy, rather
only parts thereof. And as part of corporate
strategy and in some case business
strategy, firms often provide the
means for employees to turn their
ideas into companies in which the
primary entity invests for a sizeable
piece of the company. What is the role of leadership in
making strategy work? What kind of
communication systems, do you
think are vital to successful strategy
execution?
Successful strategy formulation and
execution depends on effective leadership.
Research on leadership suggests
that leaders need to have different
styles for various types of strategic
situations asset reduction, turnaround,
growth, stabilization, and
end game for example. Some leaders
are not able to manage in more than
one type of strategic situation, but truly great leaders have this ability to
manage both turnaround and growth
into stabilization. Leaders such as
JackWelch at GE,AG Lafley at Proctor
& Gamble, Gordon Bethune at Continental
Airlines, Mark Hurd at
Hewlett Packard, Lee Iacocca at
Chrysler, Jamie Dimon at Bank One
and later at J P Morgan Chase, Carlos
Ghosn at Renault Nissan, Herbert
Hainer of Adidas, Fujio Mitarai of
Canon and Ratan Tata of the Tata
Group have all demonstrated this
unique ability to lead in three different
corporate strategic situations. The appropriate communication system
includes strategic change messages
that are different fordifferent audiences.
For example key personnel,
stockholders, employees, customers
and the community. For each audience,
strategists need at a minimum
to: Plan their communication for each
audience based on the characteristics
and needs of each; educate as to the
whys of a strategy change; build a
sense of urgency for the change; be
prepared to answer key questions
members of each audience might
have; address any emotional issues
involved for each group but especially
for employees; ask the audience
to commit to the new strategy and tell
them how; and then measure communication
effectiveness. And to
quote Jack Welch, "You communicate
it and communicate it. Then you
communicate it some more. Just
when you think they have it, they
dont. And you have to communicate
it again." What is the role of culture in
implementing strategies successfully?
The most critical aspects of culture
are the cultural artifacts that organizations
possess that for all intents and
purposes direct the culture. These artifacts
must be aligned with the new
strategy if it is to be successful. If they
are not changed, then a new strategy
is doomed from the beginning. The
focal corporate artifacts are the core
corporate values, belief systems and
norms. The other major cultural artifacts
are changed or deleted according
to the core values that are changed,
deemphasized or emphasized to a
greater extent. The other commonly
identified cultural artifacts are myths
and sagas (stories about what makes
for success under the new or old
strategy/new or old values); language
systems and metaphors related to the
new strategy/new values; symbols,
ceremonies, and rituals related to the
new strategy/new values; rewards for
achieving the new strategy/new values;
and the use of physical space
and equipment in support of the new
strategy/new values. The latter five
cultural artifacts are used to reinforce
the new strategy and the new values.
If they are not put into place, then the
old cultural artifacts are reinforcing
the old strategy and old values in opposition
to the new strategy and new
values.
1.
Business Strategy Case Studies
2. ICMR
Case Collection
3.
Case Study Volumes
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