The Organization Is Always Executing Something

Executive Field Note 012

When strategy and behavior diverge, leaders often say execution has failed.

But the organization is executing.

It may be executing its incentives.

Its history.

Its fears.

Its informal relationships.

Its assumptions about what is actually rewarded.

Observed behavior is not the absence of execution.

It is evidence of what the organization is really organized around.

If behavior is the execution, what strategy does your organization actually have?

Published by Executive Insights. A publication of Axiom Research Press