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The Leaders Paradox

George B. Weathersby

Chairman & CEO, Genesys Solutions, LLC

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Whenever I meet a CEO or senior leader of any organization, large or small, I always ask the following question:

"Given the choice, would you rather lead an organization that has (a) an A+ strategy but only B- execution; or, (b) a B- strategy and A+ execution?"

In the thirty years of my career as a faculty member at Harvard University and UC Berkeley, as a CEO of several corporations and venture capital funds, as a board member of many companies and nonprofits, as President of the American Management Association and as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies and the US government, the answer I receive has always been the same, without exception: CEOs and senior leaders would rather lead the organization that has superior execution (choice "b").

Leaders in all fields tell me that they could achieve their most important objectives if only their organizations had the capability to implement an A+ execution. Knowing how to select a good strategy is essential ("What are the right things to do?"), but even the most ingenious strategy will fail if it is not executed properly ("How to do things right?").

Leaders know that the real value for clients, customers, shareholders and employees is created by an organization only when it can successfully execute its chosen mission-implement its strategy. Leaders also know that their professional future will be limited unless they can lead their organization to achieve successful execution. In other words, each constituent of every organization has every imperative to get the right things done--to successfully execute its strategy.

The Leaders' Paradox is that while the one attribute of an organization that every constituent would benefit substantially from is successful execution, the dirty secret is that most leaders are not very good at execution. In fact, we're pretty terrible at execution. According to McKinsey & Company, over 75 percent of management initiatives fail to achieve their objectives. Even when CEOs, directors and investors have billions of dollars at risk and employ world-expert strategists, the result of their execution usually fails to fulfill their promises to the market. Even companies with world-renowned CEOs frequently fail to achieve their strategic objectives, fail to delight their customers and fail to create the value they promised to their shareholders. As a result, customers' needs are not met, competitors grab vital market share, employee and customer turnover skyrockets and market value declines.

What are leaders doing wrong? To put it simply, the vast majority of organizations put too much emphasis on "selecting the right things to do" (strategy) and not enough on "doing things right" (execution). This leads to failure because real value is not created through the selection of strategy. It is not created through massive reorganization. It is not created by hiring different types of people. It is not created by heroic CEOs. It is not created by employees working longer hours. Real value is only created through successful execution of strategy.

Genesys Solutions has developed a new paradigm that has been distilled from the experiences of hundreds of business units and hundreds of thousands of employees. This paradigm is the most effective and powerful framework available to enable an organization to improve its ability to successfully execute its strategy--effectively implement what was selected by leadership as the right things to do. Relying on the power of this innovative framework, leaders at every level will clearly see what actions must be taken in their organizations to effect successful execution and will know precisely how they can create more value now and how they can get more done with existing employees, in any economy, no matter what curveballs come their way.

If successfully executing your 2007 strategy is uppermost in your mind, if it is your most important objective for 2007 and if you are committed to creating value for your organization through a year of outstanding performance against its strategy, Genesys can help and I would welcome the opportunity to speak with you.

Together we can improve and sustain your organization's ability to do things right. I look forward to hearing from you and send my very best wishes for your successful execution in the New Year!