“They were worried that I would get bogged down in wanting to do things, not just create strategy.”
– David Polinchock / @lbbinc
One of the topics covered during the #LikeMinds Summit this past weekend was precisely this: The chasm between strategy and execution, especially as businesses struggle to understand how to leverage, integrate and operationalize Social Communications (what you do with social media platforms) in the coming 6-24 months.
Unfortunately, because the C-suite tends to look to itself when it comes to “strategic masterminding,” the focus too often shifts from execution at the customer level (the most important thing a business should be focusing on on) to… being the guy who came up with the game-changing strategy that will secure more funding and increase influence within the organization.
When this happens, strategy becomes a product, and that’s bad. Strategy isn’t a product. Strategy exists mostly in support of execution.
Any idiot with a powerpoint deck can deliver a “Social” strategy:
“We’ll create a facebook fan page, a twitter account, a LinkedIn Group, a YouTube channel, a blog, and a Flickr account too! We’ll convert all of our customers who participate in social networking into fans and followers, and we’ll engage them with content at regular intervals throughout the day. We’ll embed hyperlinks into our tweets and facebook updates so we can pull them to our website to increase traffic there. We’ll get lots of extra clicks. We’ll gain mindshare by being there with them on their favorite social platforms. When they talk to us, we’ll respond. We’ll monitor sentiment and mentions. Our social media strategy will be a success.”
Um… yeah, except… no.
Sometimes, companies focus so much on developing and implementing strategies that they forget to focus on what’s important: Focusing on the customers. That’s priority numero uno. As a consumer, I don’t give two shakes what a company’s latest strategy is. I really don’t care. You want to gain 4% market share in the next quarter? You want to dominate the tablet PC market? Okay. Great. What’s that to me? All I want is for you to improve my life. How are you planning on doing that? How does your strategy actually make anything happen on the ground? Have you thought about what happens when your theories actually touch the real world?
The gap between high level strategy and ground-level execution can usually be summed up this way: Do you understand the tactics and ground level dynamics enough to ensure that your strategy will turn into something more than just an inspiring powerpoint presentation? Yes = small or no gap. No = huge gap.
On the ground, in the real world, what does your grand strategy do to make me want to spend more time recommending you to my friends? Spend more time wishing I could fill my garage with more of your stuff? What’s your strategy to make my experiences with your brand outclass and outshine my experiences with every other company? What’s your strategy to be awesome?
Don’t just look at strategy from the top down and the inside out. Also look at it from the outside in. How does it play in terms of influencing customer perceptions and behavior? How does it differentiate you or increase preference?
Let me illustrate the difference between tactically-agnostic strategy and tactically-savvy strategy:
What could you do TODAY that would change the way customers feel about you?
a) Give them a 10% off rebate that may take 30-60 business days to process. (We’ll worry about eroding margins and loyalty later.)
b) Knock their socks off with incredible customer service. (Smiles are free and being helpful makes customers come back.)
– or another choice –
a) Try to nickle-and-dime a guest with a $10 bottle of water in their hotel room (hey, going after that incremental revenue looks genius on Excel. Let’s charge extra for everything! We’ll make billions off premium pillow mints.)
b) Slap a note on the bottle that says “It’s water. Of course it’s free.” (The repeat business, loyalty and recommendations are worth more than the odd begrudged transaction.)
Which hotel chain is more likely to get repeat business and earn recommendations?
Which of these options do you think a disconnected top-down strategy might have generated? a) or b)?
Strangely, few companies have an “awesomeness” strategy. They have growth strategies, sales strategies, reach strategies, campaign strategies, pull strategies… all of which include a lot of content creation, content distribution and push/pull schemes created and directed from the top echelons. Great stuff, don’t get me wrong. But also lots of wasted energy working its way down to customers through less than fluid “channels.” Lots of energy wasted encountering friction and resistance on their way to the customers. Encountering snags and problems. That’s the execution gap. That’s the part of implementation that too much emphasis on strategy, coupled with an operational chasm between the “strategists” and the “doers” creates.
So, your company isn’t short on strategy. You have dozens if not hundreds of powerpoint presentations to prove it. The quarterly deluge of strategic plans and “bullet points” and budget proposals to prove it. Social Media-related or otherwise. How’s that been working out for you?
Social Media – as it relates to Brand Management, PR, Marketing, Business Development, Community Management, recruiting, internal collaboration, product innovation and crisis management – isn’t about developing the winning strategy. There’s no “win” in developing or delivering a strategy. Any strategy. Ever. Anywhere. I mean, yes, you’re smart. We get it. Thank you. That’s wonderful. But now what?
The reality here, the nugget, is this: The emphasis on top-down strategy is completely wrong for Social Media and Social Communications. The way to truly make Social Media and Social Communications WORK for business requires a focus on enablement, not strategy. Strategies don’t generate revenue. Strategies don’t win market share. Strategies don’t make customers loyal. Strategies are bullets on a slide, ink on paper, words across a conference table. They’re essentially worthless until you can use them to move a needle.
The disproportionate investment in strategy vs. implementation and execution is at the heart of why “Social” works for so few companies right now.
1. What are we trying to improve? (What should we be trying to improve?) <– Start with customer experience. Always.
2. What will it take to make that happen?
3. Does Social fit in?
4. If so, how?
5. What can Social help us improve?
6. What will it take to make that happen?
That’s it. Those those 6 questions. Start there. Stop talking about it. Move towards something your customers will be able to grasp, enjoy, value and convey.
Next time someone wants to sell you on a strategy, tell them to come back when they can show you exactly how they plan to implement it. Always make the strategist responsible for the execution. You’ll save yourself a lot of headaches, and things will get done a lot faster.
Cheers,
Olivier
PS: The upcoming Red Chair double-workshop in Portland, Oregon (PDX) on March 11 and March 12 focuses on precisely that: How to actually put all of this into action. How to make it work. One session is designed for enterprise space management and executives, and the other for account management and Social Media for small business. It would be lovely of you to help spread the word, even if you can’t attend this time around. 🙂 For registration and information, click here.
Brand Building and Online Marketing Blog 
careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because some jokers can’t put together a decent, customer-focused strategy doesn’t mean others can and do. The best strategies are built in a way that allows the organization to grow while meeting the needs of the customer. But of course the strategy isn’t worth anything until it’s implemented. It’s like a last will and testament – it doesn’t work until it’s executed.
Sure. Don’t mistake my post for an indictment of Strategy. 😀 Just reaching WAY over into the tactical aisle to bring strategy and tactics in balance.
Here’s what’s going on: Company X wants to get into Social. They hire a consulting firm to teach them how, why, etc. Then they pay for strategy. A LOT. The consulting firm starts to talk to them about execution and enablement. Company X says, “we’re good. We can handle it.” Without a thought put into capabilities, training, change management, IT considerations, legal considerations, employee development, employee support, process design, etc., they take all of that strategic work and put it on the shoulders of a couple of interns and a blogger.
That kind of process needs to say goodnight. 😉
Yes. I’d call that an irresponsible strategy formulation. There are always a few bad eggs spoiling the bunch!
Olivier,
I think you’ve hit on a great chasm between successful and unsuccessful social media platforms. The existence of a Facebook page does not a great brand make. It’s what you do with it that matters. And to be honest, it’s really what you do as a company/brand regardless of your social networking presences that truly matter.
Social media just amplifies what already exists. If you’ve got a crappy product and crappy service, a Twitter profile won’t magically make those things better. It starts with truly creating an awesome product with awesome service- something that needs to be cultivated in your brand’s culture before picking up social tools.
Facebook, Twitter, etc. are just tools, no different than a telephone or e-mail- they can help you create a better experience and identity, but you have to actually make an effort into carrying out what you’ve “strategized.”
Bingo x 100. Absolutely. Absolutely brilliant.
“Always make the strategist responsible for the execution.”
I like this. The strategy theorist Mintzberg (who someone mentioned at LikeMinds) has identified that “strategy” can be seen as an outcome of the thinking of everyone in an organisation.
So the “C-suite” might have a planned strategy to reach 70% market share, but customer interactions will limit the growth to 25%. No amount of strategic thinking by the Big Boss can fix that. The workforce are the strategy.
Mintzberg is well worth reading. “Strategy Safari” is my favourite management book of all time.
(great presentation at LikeMinds BTW)
Martin
Thanks, Martin! You just nailed it with that comment. Exactly. 🙂
Hi Oliver:
Some great points to be sure…the act of “doing” cannot be obviated from business while maintaining any hope of success. That said, strategy has its place too. Strategy shouldn’t be held out as something to be deemphasized, but rather something to be better understood and better integrated. The issue isn’t strategy itself, but that of bad strategy or a lack of understanding on the role that strategy plays. Here is my argument in support of strategy: http://bit.ly/a5xql3
Thanks Oliver…I’m a big fan of what you do. Keep up the great work.
This post came at a great time for me as I was rethinking how I presented social media implementation to clients. You are spot on with the gap between strategy and execution. I’ve wised up and stopped offering consulting for social strategies and started offering teaching to get the company in the right frame of mind on what social media is really about before they touch a social tool. Then, if they are still ready to implement social media once they know what they’re in for, We set monthly goals, weekly meetings, and daily tactics so that implementing is never a guessing game.
Olivier,
Another diamond bullet with some great comments. It’s often easy to lose sight that no matter how great a strategy is, it’s worthless if you can’t execute it.
Your post reminds me of Robert Sutton’s terrific book, “The Knowing-Doing Gap.” Certain companies have the wrong organizational DNA to execute a strategy (whether it’s good or bad). The best strategist sizes up their strategic recommendations in this light and helps deliver.
Thanks,
rPm
Yes yes yes! The psychologist in me just loves this. I’m a great supporter of getting the strategy right, however if that’s not lead by ‘real’ customer/client understanding then you have a disconnect.
For me it’s about finding a balance between truly understanding your customer/client (so getting under their skin and truly understanding their needs, wants, desires – the stuff that makes them tick) and how you can give them that, your strategy – the stuff that makes the senior team tick, and finally the ideas and tools that help you to achieve both.
I’m looking forward to this white paper even more now 🙂
Love this, Olivier. Condenses and clarifies a lot of what I’ve been thinking about since Like Minds.
We spend so much time trying to get brands to ‘buy into’ big strategies but THEY need to be the ones taking ownership and driving them through their business. They are the ones who know their business and capabilities best, after all.
The only way this is going to happen is if they see RESULTS – if a social approach makes their lives easier and their jobs work better. As Mister Brogan said, paint the target, make a difference, and then get the wider strategy pumping through.
As word of mouth or social practitioners, we should start with what is useful to the consumer. The brand will then see how implementing this brings value to them. This necessitates a sense of direction from the start, but then enablement, not strategising, as you say.
A strategy will change when you listen and observe what’s working and what’s not, anyway.
This stuff works. Let’s start by proving it, not talking about it.
Strategies are organizing and guiding principals on which your tactics are founded. I’m not sure that you can have one without the other.
A strategy that isn’t fully realized through a set of solid tactics is useless. A shotgun smattering of unorganized tactics is worse than useless, it’s useless and often expensive.
I agree that companies can over-index on the ivory tower side of the equation (which I think is your point). But I think solid strategies are needed to guide the real-world deployment of tactics.
Fun post Olivier,
I guess I won’t caution you not to toss the baby out with the bath water since that quip was already taken. Heh.
But what I might lend that a strategy really isn’t a strategy unless it can be executed. If it can’t be executed, it’s only theory.
All my best,
Rich
Oh, of course! Unfortunately, many strategies (especially in SM) are being developed with no thought to purpose or execution. It’s bizarre.
I love the post, but I think the dichotomy is more between purpose / no-purpose, like you allude to here, than between strategy and execution. A strategy without a meaningful purpose (like making life better for your customers) is pointless in the long run. I’m not even sure if you can call that a strategy with a straight face. Same with execution without a purpose (we should have a Facebook page because everyone is doing it!). It doesn’t build anything meaningful for the business or its customers.
The flip side to your point is that, especially in a lot of mature industries, people just keep executing day after day on the same me-too strategy, with predictably poor results. If your product is a commodity, you can’t be successful just by executing harder than you did yesterday. You have to step back and figure out a new way to add value for the customer. So it has to be a marriage between a meaningful high-level direction (i.e., strategy) and execution.
Nice Post. I’ll check for update soon on this forum from my site to get more traffic in my Amazing life.
Definitely another nail-on-the-head post – except for the tactical discount notes to which you and I shall talk about later. = )
😀
I’m going to get it now for sure.
Thanks for such a spot-on and provocative post, Olivier. When the folks responsible for strategy are disconnected from execution, they are not accountable for results (how often do we see such folks fail upwards?). This situation often inhibits great strategies, which I have too often seen run aground on the mess of organizational silos and “that’s not my job-ism.”
I understand that a strategy has to fit the capacities of the organization, but how do you think the established routines of a business get in the way of good execution? The exisiting departments and functions were created to execute the old strategy — which isn’t working anymore, hence the need for a new strategy. Is part of the problem that the strategists are unable or unwilling to deal with how the strategy requires a new management structure?
I’ve often found it a challenge convincing the top management and the CEO that big structural changes have to be made in how the business is organized so that a strategy can be effectively implemented. (And further: that the organization has to create a loose enough structure to rapidly reorganize and adapt because strategies are going to be changing again, and more often).
What have I been getting wrong that I’ve failed to make this case successfully?
Thanks. Change is always a dragon, and far too few of us have the will, patience and motivation to saddle that horse and go slay them. Keep up the good work. 🙂
Hey Olivier –
You’ve left me in a tough spot with this post. On the one hand, random speculation by those fully disconnected with their audience is, as you’ve pointed out, truly awful. On the other hand, to call this “strategy” borders on a red haring. Poor thought leadership is no more, or less, damaging than poor execution. Coming out of the ad world, my experience is that there is just as much terrible execution as there is terrible “strategy”.
Given your past writing, and your comments on this post, it’s clear this isn’t your point, but I fear that this may be hoisted as an example of what I feel is a dangerous “don’t think, just do” meme emerging in the marketing world. The same thought process that says things like “you can’t measure ROI in the social media space, you just need to ‘engage'”
Any way, like I said, I can’t disagree with any of your examples. They are all, indeed, bad ideas. My main quibble is that, as others have said, I’d like to maintain the baby in this baby/bathwater equation.
I’ve already seen a few comments pop up along that vein, so yes. Your point is well taken: And to be clear, I am not saying strategy is bad or unnecessary. Far from it. I am asking people to take a step back a bit, though, look at the whole picture, then reset their strategy-to-execution mindset a bit. For many managers, that equation is out of balance. Everyone wants to be the strategist, yet not everyone wants to do the work that bridges the gap between theory and execution. I’m suggesting a bit of an adjustment. Nothing more. 😉
Cheers.
>All I want is for you to improve my life. How are you planning on doing that? How does your strategy actually make anything happen on the ground? Have you thought about what happens when your theories actually touch the real world?
The answers are in the ether (volunteered and free). The key is to surrender the C-Suite ego and be willing to listen, identify, quantify, prioritize and then provide an answer to what is gleaned via the social stream.
And, as you said, implementation bridges the chasm between knowing and doing. The aversion to failure is so ingrained for most that it’s safer and cozier to remain cloaked in those glittery PPP than to implement.
What’s maddening is that in the world of social, it doesn’t really take much of a risk, per se, because of the effectiveness of the ripples.
More people should play to the strengths of social and “ride the wave,” so to speak. Let the momentum of the medium carry and amplify/magnify your message. It requires a level of trust to release that strategy.
Great post. Thanks very much for sharing it.
Best, M.
“We’ll create a facebook fan page, a twitter account, a LinkedIn Group, a YouTube channel, a blog, and a Flickr account too! We’ll convert all of our customers who participate in social networking into fans and followers, and we’ll engage them with content at regular intervals throughout the day. We’ll embed hyperlinks into our tweets and facebook updates so we can pull them to our website to increase traffic there. We’ll get lots of extra clicks. We’ll gain mindshare by being there with them on their favorite social platforms. When they talk to us, we’ll respond. We’ll monitor sentiment and mentions. Our social media strategy will be a success.”
I agree, the above is not a strategy. Those are tactics. The terms and philosophy of the engagement make up a strategy. Know your customer outside of statistics. Know that they define you and your strategy more than you do.
Thought provoking post Oliver. I don’t think anyone would disagree that executing is the key to any successful strategy. However, using social media here may not be the best example.
My experiences have been that social media is usually heavily weighted on the execution of tactics (shiny objects) and not enough on the larger customer and content strategy.
What we need is more alignment between the boardroom folks and the boots on the ground executing. I’m always surprised more organizations can’t articulate (or measure) how their digital channel ties into the business strategy.
Good stuff.
Jeff Cram
great stuff Olivier and very much agree – strategy is only as good as its implementation.
I think the issue flows both ways – strategy often doesn’t get written by people with solid experience in making things happen, and those who are tasked to deliver often aren’t brought fully up to speed on the strategic role that they are playing.
given the always on and ever changing nature of the world these days we need to develop much more fluid approaches to the interaction between strategy and delivery, clients and agencies, brands and customers.
A
Exactly.
It seems to me the strategy and implementation of the company ought to be to give the customer an exceptional experience. If that is in place the move into social media will work well. If it isn’t you’ve done a great job in explaining the results.
good points, thanks for post.
An Awesomeness Strategy – that’s what companies needs!
I really like Ryan McCormack’s comment above too –
“The best strategist sizes up their strategic recommendations in this light and helps deliver”.
Natalie
@nataliegiddings
Janet said it right when she noted that creating a facebook page, twitter account and the like aren’t strategy…they’re tactics…two different things. Your strategy should account for how to best meet the needs of your customers.
When deciding to build our brand with social media, we first did just you described (we were those “idiots”) and didn’t get much feedback or results. Then we polled our customers, found out what they would really benefit from and focused our efforts there. In the second revision of our tactics, the response was much better, interactive and worthwhile…all because we asked the question we should have asked the first time: What should our strategy do for you?
Jill
@DataJoe
After listening to the podcast with @keithburtis last night, I decided to play catch up on your posts as well. Boy am I glad I did. This post is so spot on. Without boring you with details (because it’s the same story everytime), I have a friend running for a NC Senate seat. He came to me and said he wanted a FB page and Twitter account set up. He also hired an advertising/pr firm. Here’s the funny part: I participated in a conference call regarding social media strategy with the candidate, the firm, and me. The firm was touting “strategy” nearly identical to the above. I was getting a little argumentative because I thought my friend was getting taken to the cleaners. We all know how much you can learn about these “experts” or “gurus” by the way they manage their own accounts. So I asked for the adv/pr firms Twitter account name. “We don’t have one”. I asked for the adv/pr exec personal Twitter account name. “I don’t have one”. Facebook? Or Fanpage? “No, we don’t use them, but our clients do” I kid you not. That was the actually response. They are advising clients to use Twitter / FB but don’t use it themselves. I learned later that afternoon my friend hired them for a retainer of $5000 to advise on campaign strategy. Things like that happen when there are so many struggling marketers with so much more talent and knowledge. Thanks for letting me rant.
Hi Oliver,
I loved your simple 6 questions to ask. That can be the basis of any strategy. I find that too many times, people get so caught up on developing the strategy, that they do forget the implementation piece. I’m sure you’ve heard of ‘paralysis by analysis.’ I know you need to know where you going and why and how to know you’re arrived, but keep it simple.
Your post is a great reminder.
That can be the basis of any strategy
Yea the never ending strategy trap, and the constant new ways of doing some times the same thing.
It’s all like information over load.
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