The Strategy Execution Gap Isn't Real (Your Strategy Is Just Bad)

I give presentations on the strategy execution gap. It's become a standard topic in the consulting world - everyone nods knowingly about this persistent problem where organisations struggle to translate brilliant strategies into actual results.

Here's what I don't tell audiences until halfway through: the strategy execution gap isn't real.

That gets attention. Sometimes uncomfortable attention. But it's true. When organisations can't execute their strategy, the problem isn't execution. The problem is the strategy itself.

Where Strategies Actually Break

I've worked with dozens of organisations struggling with what they call "execution problems." Leadership creates a strategy, communicates it clearly, gets everyone bought in. Six months later, almost nothing has changed. The usual diagnosis? We're just not good at execution.

But when you dig into these strategies, you find something interesting. They stop short. They lay out where the organisation wants to go—the vision, the objectives, maybe even some high-level initiatives. Then they hand it off to the organisation to "execute."

That handoff point is where the strategy dies. Not because people aren't committed or capable. Because the strategy didn't actually do its job.

A real strategy doesn't stop at objectives. It connects all the way through to the important activities that will achieve them. When you leave that connection work to chance, you haven't created an execution problem. You've created a strategy problem.

The BAU Trap

Here's the pattern I see constantly: organisations want to separate strategic work from BAU (business as usual). It feels logical. Strategic work is special, important, forward-looking. BAU is operational, routine, maintaining the present. Different things deserve different treatment.

As soon as you make this separation, your strategy starts dying.

Because here's what actually happens in organisations. Your team has their daily work - customer requests, operational issues, the pipeline that needs managing, the features that need shipping. Then you add strategy initiatives on top of that. Now they're juggling two separate workstreams with different tracking systems, different meetings, different priorities.

Guess which one wins?

BAU always wins. Not because people don't care about strategy. Because when a customer has a problem at 2pm and you have a strategic planning meeting next week, the customer comes first. As they should. But do that enough times and your strategy becomes something you'll get to "when things settle down."

Things never settle down.

The Real Issue: Disconnection

The fundamental problem is that if your BAU doesn't feed your strategy, one of two things needs to happen. Either your strategy needs to change, or your BAU needs to change.

Most organisations never make this explicit. They track BAU separately from strategy. Different systems, different reports, different review meetings. This separation feels organised. It actually guarantees failure.

When BAU and strategy are tracked separately, you miss the disconnection entirely. Your BAU metrics look fine—hitting targets, serving customers, shipping product. Your strategy metrics show lack of progress. But you never see that your BAU is actively working against your strategy because you've created separate universes that never properly intersect.

I worked with a services company whose strategy focused on moving upmarket to enterprise clients. Smart strategy, well-reasoned. Meanwhile, their entire operation—from sales incentives to delivery processes to team skills—was optimised for small business clients. Their BAU was excellent by its own measures. It was also making their strategy impossible.

This wasn't an execution problem. This was a strategy that stopped short of actually addressing what needed to change in daily operations.

What Makes Strategy Executable

An executable strategy does three things that most strategies skip:

First, it explicitly connects strategic objectives to the specific activities that will achieve them. Not vague initiatives. Actual work that someone needs to start doing, stop doing, or do differently.

Second, it forces the hard choices about what existing work needs to change or stop. If your strategy doesn't kill something you're currently doing, it's not a real strategy. It's a wish list.

Third, it brings BAU and strategy into the same conversation. Not separate workstreams, separate tracking systems, separate reviews. One integrated view of what matters and whether the daily work is moving you toward it.

This isn't easy. It's actually harder than writing the typical high-level strategy document. It requires making uncomfortable decisions about priorities and trade-offs. It means telling people that some of their current work needs to change or stop entirely.

But this is the actual work of strategy. Everything else is just planning.

Testing Your Strategy

Want to know if your strategy is the problem? Ask these five questions:

Can someone three levels down in your organisation explain how their daily work connects to your strategic objectives? If not, your strategy stopped too short.

Have you identified specific activities or initiatives that need to stop to make room for strategic work? If not, you've added strategy on top of existing work rather than making real choices.

Are your BAU metrics and strategic metrics reviewed in the same conversation by the same people? If not, you've created parallel universes that will drift apart.

Can your team see when daily decisions conflict with strategic priorities? If not, strategy lives in PowerPoint while reality lives somewhere else.

Has your leadership team agreed on what won't get done this year because of strategic priorities? If not, you haven't made the hard trade-offs that turn strategy into reality.

If you answered no to most of these, you don't have an execution gap. You have a strategy that hasn't done its job yet.

Making Strategy Work

The fix isn't executing harder. It's finishing the strategy work.

That means extending your strategy all the way through to operational reality. What specific activities need to change? What current work needs to stop? How does daily decision-making need to shift?

It means integrating BAU and strategy into one coherent view of what matters. Not separate workstreams. One set of priorities that covers both maintaining current performance and building future capability.

And it means having one tracking system that shows whether your organisation's actual activities are moving you toward strategic objectives. When those things disconnect—and they will—you see it immediately and can adjust.

This is harder than creating a polished strategy deck. It requires sustained attention, difficult trade-offs, and honest conversations about what's really happening versus what you hoped would happen.

But it solves the actual problem. Which was never execution. It was always strategy.