Execution is failing. Projects miss deadlines. Quality degrades. Teams can’t ship what they committed to. Customer satisfaction declines. Competitive position erodes.
Leadership responds by calling a strategy review. Consultants get hired. Teams submit inputs. Leadership convenes for offsite meetings. The review produces a refined strategic plan with updated priorities, clearer objectives, and better alignment.
Execution problems persist. The new strategy fails to execute just like the old strategy. Teams still miss deadlines. Quality still degrades. The cycle repeats. Next year, another strategy review.
This pattern is common because organizations misdiagnose execution problems as strategy problems. The real causes are incentive misalignment, resource fragmentation, coordination failures, and capability gaps. Strategy reviews don’t address these. They produce better plans that the organization still can’t execute.
What Strategy Reviews Actually Do
Strategy reviews examine whether the organization is pursuing the right direction. They ask:
- Are we competing in the right markets?
- Is our competitive positioning sound?
- Do we have the right priorities?
- Are our strategic objectives clearly defined?
- Is there alignment across leadership in direction?
These are valid questions. But they’re strategic questions, not execution questions. They help determine where to go, not how to get there.
The typical strategy review process:
Input gathering. Teams submit assessments of current state, market conditions, competitive dynamics, customer needs.
Analysis. Consultants or internal strategy teams analyze inputs, identify gaps, benchmark competitors, model scenarios.
Offsite sessions. Leadership discusses findings, debates options, makes decisions about strategic direction.
Documentation. Strategy gets articulated in presentations, planning documents, and communication materials.
Rollout. Strategy gets presented to the organization through town halls, team meetings, and internal communications.
This process can produce good strategies. It creates clarity about direction. It builds leadership alignment. It provides a framework for decision-making.
But it doesn’t fix execution. The organization now has a clearer strategy it still can’t execute.
The Misdiagnosis Problem
Execution failures create visible symptoms. Projects slip. Releases delay. Quality issues emerge. Customer complaints increase. Revenue targets miss.
Leadership interprets these symptoms as strategic problems. “We must be working on the wrong things. If we had the right strategy, execution would succeed.”
This interpretation is often wrong. The symptoms result from execution system failures:
Insufficient capacity for committed work. Teams commit to more work than they can complete. Every sprint ends with incomplete work. The problem isn’t strategy. It’s capacity planning.
Unclear decision authority. Work stalls waiting for approvals. Multiple stakeholders can veto but nobody can approve. The problem isn’t strategy. It’s decision authority.
Cross-team dependencies that don’t resolve. Team A waits for Team B. Team B is blocked on Team C. Team C is waiting for Team A. The problem isn’t strategy. It’s dependency management.
Misaligned incentives. Teams optimize for local metrics that conflict with organizational objectives. The problem isn’t strategy. It’s an incentive design.
Technical debt accumulation. Simple changes take weeks because the codebase is fragile. The problem isn’t strategy. It’s technical debt.
Knowledge gaps. Teams lack skills needed to execute strategy. They’re building capabilities while executing. The problem isn’t strategy. It’s capability development.
Strategy reviews examine strategic questions. They don’t examine execution systems. They produce better strategies that fail to execute for the same systemic reasons the previous strategy failed.
Why Leadership Prefers Strategy Reviews
Given that execution problems stem from execution systems, why do organizations respond with strategy reviews?
Strategy reviews are leadership’s domain. Executives are good at strategic thinking. It’s where they have expertise and authority. Execution system problems require understanding operational details leadership may not have.
Strategy is more interesting than execution. Debating market positioning and competitive strategy is intellectually engaging. Fixing approval processes and dependency management is tedious operational work.
Strategy reviews produce clear outputs. A refined strategic plan is concrete deliverable. Fixing execution systems is continuous improvement without a clear endpoint.
Strategy problems are politically safer. “Our strategy needed refinement” blames the plan. Execution problems implicate teams, managers, and organizational systems that people own.
Strategy reviews delay accountability. If execution is failing, leadership may face consequences. Calling a strategy review postpones accountability while appearing proactive.
External validation is available. Consultants can validate that strategy needs work. This provides cover for leadership. Execution problems are internal and don’t have external validators.
Strategy change feels like action. Announcing new strategic priorities creates the appearance of decisive leadership. Fixing execution systems is invisible infrastructure work.
Strategy reviews are comfortable for leadership. Execution system fixes are uncomfortable. Organizations default to comfortable responses even when they don’t address the problem.
What Execution Actually Requires
Execution converts strategy into delivered outcomes. This requires several systems working properly:
Resource Allocation That Matches Commitments
Teams need adequate resources for work they’re asked to deliver. This means:
- Headcount sufficient for committed scope
- Budget for necessary tools and infrastructure
- Time allocated realistically based on actual velocity
- Buffer for unexpected issues and dependencies
Most organizations under-resource strategic initiatives. They commit to ambitious outcomes without providing corresponding resources. Execution fails predictably. Strategy reviews don’t address resourcing. They add new priorities that further fragment limited resources.
Clear Decision Authority and Fast Resolution
Execution requires thousands of small decisions. Delays in decision-making delay execution. Fast execution needs:
- Clear decision rights (who decides what)
- Minimal approval layers
- Fast escalation paths when decisions are blocked
- Empowerment of teams to make execution decisions
Most organizations have unclear decision authority and slow approval processes. Work stalls waiting for decisions. Strategy reviews don’t clarify decision rights. They create new initiatives that add more stakeholders to decision processes.
Effective Cross-Team Coordination
Most strategic work requires coordination across teams. Effective coordination needs:
- Explicit dependency mapping
- Synchronization mechanisms
- Conflict resolution processes
- Shared success metrics
Most organizations have weak coordination mechanisms. Dependencies are discovered late. Conflicts escalate slowly. Teams optimize locally while global objectives fail. Strategy reviews don’t improve coordination. They create new cross-team initiatives that add coordination complexity.
Incentives Aligned to Strategic Objectives
People optimize for how they’re measured and rewarded. Execution requires:
- Metrics that track strategic progress
- Compensation tied to strategic outcomes
- Promotion criteria that reward strategic work
- Recognition for execution excellence
Most organizations have incentive systems that predate current strategy. Teams optimize for old metrics while leadership expects new behaviors. Strategy reviews don’t change incentive systems. They announce new objectives while incentives still reward old ones.
Adequate Capabilities for Strategic Work
Strategy may require capabilities the organization lacks. Execution requires:
- Skills needed to deliver strategic initiatives
- Knowledge of new domains or technologies
- Experience with required approaches
- Time to build capabilities while executing
Most organizations commit to strategies requiring capabilities they don’t have. They expect teams to build capabilities while delivering at full velocity. Strategy reviews don’t address capability gaps. They set ambitious objectives assuming capabilities exist.
Technical Infrastructure That Supports Strategy
For technical organizations, execution depends on infrastructure:
- Systems that can support strategic direction
- Technical architecture that enables required work
- Tooling that makes execution efficient
- Platforms that reduce implementation cost
Most organizations have technical infrastructure built for previous strategy. New strategic direction requires architectural changes that take quarters or years. Strategy reviews don’t address technical debt. They assume infrastructure can support new directions.
The Strategy-Execution Gap in Practice
Consider a common scenario:
Execution problem: Engineering teams consistently miss quarterly commitments. Features ship late. Quality issues increase. Customer-facing teams can’t rely on delivery timelines.
Leadership response: Strategy review to ensure engineering is working on right priorities.
Strategy review output: Refined product strategy with clearer prioritization. Updated roadmap. Better-defined customer segments. Reaffirmed quality objectives.
Execution outcome: Teams still miss quarterly commitments because the actual problems were:
- Sprint planning commits to 130% of team capacity
- Dependencies on platform team that’s oversubscribed
- Approval process requires three VP sign-offs per feature
- Technical debt makes simple changes take weeks
- QA team sized at 1:15 ratio to engineering
- Production incidents pull 20% of engineering time
- Context switching across six parallel projects
The strategy review didn’t address any of these. Better strategy doesn’t fix capacity planning, dependencies, approval processes, technical debt, QA ratios, incident management, or context switching.
Execution continues failing. Leadership concludes the strategy still needs work. Another review gets scheduled.
Why Strategy Can’t Compensate for Execution Failure
Some organizations believe that better strategy overcomes execution problems. “If we’re working on the right things with clear priorities, execution will improve.”
This is wrong for several reasons:
Execution capacity is finite. No matter how good the strategy, teams can only execute at their actual capacity. Unclear strategy wastes capacity on wrong work. But a clear strategy doesn’t increase capacity. If execution systems limit capacity, better strategy doesn’t help.
Bad execution systems destroy all strategies equally. Unclear decision authority delays strategic initiatives and non-strategic initiatives equally. Technical debt slows all development regardless of strategic importance. Misaligned incentives affect all work.
Strategy creates execution demands. A more ambitious strategy requires better execution, not less. If execution systems can barely handle current work, more strategic work fails harder.
Execution problems accumulate. While leadership reviews strategy, execution problems compound. Technical debt grows. Team morale declines. Process dysfunction worsens. By the time a new strategy arrives, execution capability has degraded further.
Execution credibility matters. If teams consistently fail to execute, they stop believing in strategic initiatives. A new strategy gets announced. Teams internally predict it will fail like previous strategies. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
Good strategy executed poorly loses to mediocre strategy executed well. Organizations with weak execution systems should fix execution before refining strategy.
The Review Cycle Trap
Strategy reviews create a cycle that prevents execution improvement:
Quarter 1: New strategy announced. Teams plan how to execute. Initial work begins.
Quarter 2: Execution encounters problems. Progress is slower than planned. Issues emerge.
Quarter 3: Results clearly below expectations. Leadership loses confidence in strategy. Strategy review begins.
Quarter 4: Strategy review produces refined strategy. New priorities announced. Teams abandon Quarter 1-3 work to start a new direction.
Quarter 5 (Year 2, Quarter 1): The cycle repeats.
In this cycle, no initiative gets sustained execution long enough to determine if it works. Execution problems are never diagnosed or fixed because a new strategy arrives before execution systems get examined.
Teams learn not to commit deeply to strategic initiatives. They expect strategy to change before work completes. This becomes self-fulfilling. Half-committed execution produces poor results, triggering strategy review, confirming team expectations.
Breaking the cycle requires suspending strategy reviews long enough to fix execution systems and sustain execution of current strategy. Most organizations can’t do this. Leadership interprets execution failures as strategy failures and restarts the review cycle.
What Execution Reviews Should Examine
If organizations conducted execution reviews instead of strategy reviews, they would examine different questions:
Capacity and commitment alignment:
- What is the team’s actual delivery capacity?
- What work are they committed to?
- Is commitment within capacity?
- If not, what gets descoped or deprioritized?
Decision velocity:
- How long do execution decisions take?
- Where are approval bottlenecks?
- Who has decision authority?
- What decisions can be delegated or eliminated?
Dependency management:
- What dependencies exist between teams?
- Which dependencies are causing delays?
- How are dependency conflicts resolved?
- Can dependencies be eliminated through architecture or process changes?
Incentive alignment:
- What behaviors are rewarded by the current incentive system?
- Do rewarded behaviors advance strategic objectives?
- Where do incentives create conflicts?
- What metrics should change?
Capability assessment:
- What capabilities does strategy require?
- What capabilities does an organization have?
- What’s the gap?
- How long will it take to close the gap through hiring or development?
Technical infrastructure:
- Does current architecture support strategic direction?
- What technical debt is slowing execution?
- What infrastructure investments are needed?
- What’s the migration plan?
Process efficiency:
- Where do processes slow execution without adding value?
- What approvals can be eliminated?
- Where is coordination overhead excessive?
- What processes need simplification?
These questions diagnose execution system health. The answers reveal where execution is breaking and what fixes are needed. Strategy reviews don’t ask these questions.
The Consulting Industry Incentive
Strategy consulting is more lucrative than execution consulting. Strategy projects command higher fees. They engage senior client stakeholders. They produce visible, prestigious deliverables.
Execution improvement is operational work. It’s harder to sell. It requires deep engagement with mid-level managers and frontline teams. It’s less prestigious. Outcomes are harder to measure and attribute.
When consultants are brought in to address execution failures, they have incentive to frame the problem as strategic. This justifies strategy consulting engagement with higher fees and senior stakeholder access.
The consultant recommendation is usually: refined strategy, better planning, clearer communication. These are consulting-friendly solutions. They don’t require changing incentive systems, fixing organizational dysfunction, or rebuilding technical infrastructure.
Organizations accept these recommendations because they align with leadership preference for strategy work over execution system fixes. The strategy review proceeds. Execution problems persist. Future consulting opportunities are created.
This isn’t necessarily consultant malice. It’s a structural incentive. Strategy consulting is more profitable than execution improvement. Consultants rationally recommend the solution they’re equipped to provide.
When Strategy Reviews Are Actually Needed
Strategy reviews are appropriate when actual strategy problems exist:
Market conditions changed significantly. The industry has shifted. Customer needs evolved. Competitive dynamics transformed. Current strategy was right when created but conditions changed.
Strategy is executing successfully but not producing results. Teams are delivering what strategy requires. Execution is good. But market response is poor. This indicates a strategy problem, not an execution problem.
Clear strategic misalignment exists. Different parts of the organization are pursuing conflicting strategies. Resources are fragmenting. Strategy review can create alignment.
New information invalidates strategic assumptions. Strategy was based on assumptions about markets, technology, or capabilities. Those assumptions proved wrong. Strategy needs revision based on new information.
Strategic options expanded or contracted. New capabilities, markets, or partnerships became available. Or constraints tightened. The range of viable strategies changed.
In these cases, strategy review addresses actual strategic problems. The organization can execute but is executing the wrong strategy.
But most organizations calling strategy reviews don’t have these problems. They have execution problems. The strategy is fine. The execution systems are broken.
The Execution-First Approach
Organizations with execution problems should fix execution before revising strategy:
Diagnose execution system failures. Identify where and why execution is breaking. Is it capacity, decisions, dependencies, incentives, capabilities, or infrastructure?
Prioritize highest-impact fixes. Some execution problems create bigger bottlenecks than others. Fix the constraints that will most improve execution.
Sustain current strategy during fixes. Don’t change strategic direction while fixing execution. Give teams stability to learn whether execution improvements work.
Measure execution improvement. Track whether fixes increase delivery velocity, reduce defects, improve predictability, or decrease time-to-decision.
Test execution with current strategy. Once execution improves, can teams deliver their current strategy successfully? If yes, execution was the problem. If not, strategy may need revision.
This approach separates execution problems from strategy problems. It fixes execution systems before assuming strategy is wrong.
Most organizations can’t sustain this approach. Execution improvement is slow and unglamorous. Leadership gets impatient. Strategy review seems faster and more decisive. The cycle continues.
The Coordination Cost of Strategy Changes
Each strategy change creates coordination cost that degrades execution:
Work in progress gets abandoned. Teams were executing previous strategies. The new strategy makes that work irrelevant. Effort is wasted. Morale declines.
Knowledge gets deprecated. Teams built understanding of previous strategic directions. A new strategy requires learning a new context. Productivity drops during learning.
Relationships get disrupted. Teams formed partnerships to execute previous strategies. The new strategy requires different partnerships. Coordination must be rebuilt.
Processes get invalidated. Processes were optimized for the previous strategy. The new strategy requires different processes. Teams must adapt while executing.
Metrics become misleading. Measurement systems tracked previous strategic objectives. New strategy requires new metrics. Transition period has unclear success criteria.
Technical work gets invalidated. Architecture supported the previous strategy. The new strategy may require different architecture. Technical debt increases.
Organizations underestimate these costs. Leadership sees strategy change as a costless decision. Teams experience it as disruption that degrades execution for months.
Frequent strategy changes prevent execution capability development. Teams never build deep expertise in executing consistent strategic direction. They’re perpetually adapting to new strategies while execution systems remain dysfunctional.
The Role of Strategy Stability
Execution improvement requires strategy stability. Teams need time to:
- Build capabilities required for strategy
- Develop process expertise
- Optimize coordination mechanisms
- Accumulate domain knowledge
- Refine execution based on learning
This requires executing the same strategy for extended periods. Quarters at minimum. Years ideally.
Strategy reviews introduce instability. Even minor refinements disrupt execution. Teams must reinterpret priorities, adjust plans, and rebuild coordination.
Organizations face trade-off: strategic adaptation versus execution excellence. Frequent strategy changes enable adaptation but prevent execution excellence. Stable strategy enables execution excellence but risks strategic obsolescence.
Most organizations over-index on adaptation. They change strategy too frequently in response to execution failures that stem from execution systems, not strategy. The changes prevent execution improvement.
The right balance depends on environment:
Stable markets, established business models: Prioritize execution excellence. Change strategy rarely. Invest in execution systems. Build deep execution capabilities.
Volatile markets, emerging business models: Maintain some strategic flexibility. But distinguish between fundamental pivots and tactical adjustments. Don’t disrupt execution for minor refinements.
Most organizations should change strategy less frequently than they do. Execution would improve through stability.
Why “Execution Is Strategy” Is Wrong
Some argue execution is strategy. How you execute is more important than what strategy you execute. This is too far in the opposite direction.
Bad strategy executed well still fails. If you’re competing in the wrong market or your competitive positioning is untenable, excellent execution produces efficient failure.
Strategy determines what execution systems to build. Different strategies require different execution capabilities. Customer intimacy strategy requires different execution than operational excellence strategy.
Strategic trade-offs affect execution requirements. Strategy that prioritizes speed over quality requires different execution systems than strategy prioritizing quality over speed.
Strategy and execution are both necessary. The point isn’t that execution matters more than strategy. The point is that execution problems require execution solutions, not strategy reviews.
Organizations with strategy problems should review strategy. Organizations with execution problems should fix execution. Conducting strategy reviews for execution problems wastes time and allows execution dysfunction to compound.
The Incentive to Call Strategy Reviews
Why do leaders call strategy reviews when they have execution problems?
Strategy reviews appear decisive. Announcing a strategic review shows leadership is taking action. It’s visible and prestigious.
Execution fixes are low-status work. Fixing approval processes and dependency management is operational plumbing. It’s not glamorous leadership work.
Strategy reviews buy time. If execution is failing, leaders may face consequences. Strategy review postpones accountability by framing the problem as strategic uncertainty.
External blame is available. “Market conditions require strategy revision” externalizes the problem. “Our execution systems are broken” internalizes it.
Strategy reviews are familiar. Most executives have participated in many strategy reviews. They know the process. Execution system diagnosis and repair is less familiar.
Short tenure reduces downside. Executives with 2-3 year tenures can initiate strategy reviews that won’t bear fruit until after they’re gone. Someone else owns the execution.
Board expectations favor strategy. Boards expect to review strategy. They’re less engaged with execution systems. Strategy reviews satisfy board expectations.
These incentives persist even when execution problems are obvious. Leaders rationally respond to their incentives. The incentives favor strategy reviews over execution fixes.
What Actually Fixes Execution
Fixing execution requires sustained operational improvement:
Resource allocation discipline. Stop committing to more work than teams can deliver. Build realistic capacity models. Defend team capacity against overcommitment.
Decision authority clarification. Map who decides what. Eliminate unnecessary approval layers. Empower teams to make execution decisions without escalation.
Dependency reduction. Architect systems and organizations to minimize cross-team dependencies. Where dependencies are necessary, build explicit management mechanisms.
Incentive alignment. Change metrics and compensation to reward strategic execution. Align individual incentives with organizational objectives.
Capability development. Invest in building skills and knowledge required for strategy. Accept that capability development takes time.
Technical infrastructure improvement. Address technical debt systematically. Build platforms that reduce execution cost. Invest in developer productivity.
Process simplification. Eliminate processes that add overhead without value. Simplify approval requirements. Reduce coordination overhead.
Sustained focus. Maintain strategy long enough to build execution excellence. Resist temptation to change strategy when execution struggles.
This work is unglamorous. It’s continuous improvement, not dramatic transformation. It requires engagement with operational details. It produces gradual improvement, not breakthrough results.
Strategy reviews are dramatic. Execution improvement is tedious. Organizations prefer drama to tedium. Execution problems persist.
The Real Pattern
Organizations follow a predictable pattern:
- Execution fails
- Strategy review gets initiated
- Strategy gets refined
- Execution of new strategy begins
- Execution fails (same systemic causes)
- Strategy review gets initiated
- Repeat
This cycle can continue for years. Each iteration wastes months. Execution systems never get fixed because the problem keeps getting misdiagnosed as strategic.
Breaking the pattern requires:
Diagnose execution versus strategy problems. When execution fails, identify the root cause. Is strategy wrong or are execution systems broken?
Fix execution before changing strategy. If execution systems are the problem, stabilize strategy and fix systems.
Measure execution system health. Track capacity utilization, decision velocity, dependency delays, incentive alignment. Make execution problems visible.
Resist strategy review reflex. When execution struggles, default assumptions should be execution problems, not strategy problems. Strategy review should be exceptional, not reflexive.
Reward execution improvement. Recognize and promote leaders who improve execution systems, not just those who articulate strategy.
Most organizations can’t break the pattern. The incentives favor strategy reviews. The skills for execution improvement are less common. Leadership preference for strategy work persists.
Execution problems continue while strategy reviews produce increasingly refined plans that the organization still can’t execute.
The organizations that succeed are those that recognize the difference between strategy problems and execution problems. They fix execution systems before revising strategy. They maintain strategic stability long enough to build execution excellence.
These organizations are rare because the pattern is powerful and the incentives are misaligned. But understanding why strategy reviews don’t fix execution is the first step toward actually addressing execution problems.