Implementation
Quotes
“No MBA wants to learn about
execution. It’s not exciting. Strategy is
exciting. The Big Think is exciting.
But execution is far more important.”
William Johnson
Chairman and CEO of H.J. Heinz
“The essence of strategy is choosing
what not to do.”
Michael Porter
“In theory there is no difference
between theory and practice. But in
practice there is!”
Jan LA van
“Between the idea and the reality…
Between the conception and the
creation…
Falls the shadow.”
TS Elliot
“To achieve goals you’ve never
achieved before, you need to start
doing things you’ve never done
before.”
Stephen Covey
“A business plan is only a piece of
paper and even the greatest business
plan of all will prove worthless unless
the people of a company buy into it. It
can not be sustainable or even
implemented properly, unless the
people are committed to it with the
same heart felt urgency as their
leader.”
Howard Schultz
“In business, either you're an agent
of change, or you're destined to
become a victim of change.”
Norm Brodsky
“Action is the fundamental key
to all success.”
Pablo Picasso
“Never mistake motion for action.”
Earnest Hemingway
“To think is easy. To act is hard.
But the hardest thing in the world is
to act in accordance with your
thinking.”
Johann Goethe
“Without action, the world would still
be an idea.”
INSEAD Library in France
“Strong reasons make strong actions.”
W. Shakespeare
“For every action there is an equal
and opposite criticism.”
Steven Wright
Comedian
“An unpolished plan vigorously
executed is more successful than an
ideal plan implemented with less
determination. Better to strike
energetically, gain experience, learn
what works and what does not,
reassess the new situation, devise
fresh plans and take another
step. Spend too long preparing
elaborate plans, and you will lose
both time and initiative.”
Lee Hsien Loong
Prime Minister of Singapore
“The revival of the computer giant
wasn’t due to vision, fixing IBM was
all about execution.”
Louis Grestner
Former CEO of IBM
“Execution is the missing link
between aspirations and results.”
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
“Execution is the key to strategic
success”
Lawrence Hrebiniak
Wharton Professor
“The key difference between the
worlds most admired companies and
others surveyed lies in execution.”
Hay Group Research
2003
“You must create a culture of trust
and commitment that motivates
people to implement the strategy,
not to the letter but to the spirit.”
W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne
Blue Ocean Strategy
“To improve is to change and to be
perfect is to change often.”
Sir Winston Churchill
“Many business visionaries have
failed as leaders because they could
not execute.”
Howard Schultz
“Theory is splendid, but until put into
practice it is valueless.”
James Cash Penny (1875-1971)
Founder of JC Penny
“Well done is better than well said.”
Benjamin Franklin
“For a new strategy to become a
movement, people must not only
recognize what needs to be done,
but they must act on the insight in a
sustained and meaningful way.”
W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne
Blue Ocean Strategy
“We have a ‘strategic’ plan.
It’s called doing things.”
Herb Kelleher
“Strategy is 10 per cent vision and
90 per cent execution.”
Percy Barnevik
Chairman of ABB
“Senior managers get lulled into
believing that a well conceived
strategy communicated to the
organization equals implementation.”
Michael Beer Harvard &
Russell Eisenstat McKinsey
“My job is to speak. Your job is to
listen. Let's hope we finish our jobs at
the same time.”
Adlai Stevenson
“Some where in your organization,
groups of people are already doing
things differently and better.
To create lasting change, find these
areas of positive deviance and fan
the flames.”
Richard Pascale & Jerry Sternin
“Your Company’s Secret Change Agents”
HBR
“Nothing happens without personal
transformation.”
W.E. Deming
“Ideas are a commodity. Execution of
them is not.”
Michael Dell
“The most fundamental part of
organizational success is creating a
strategy and then running every
decision through the prism of that
plan.”
President Obama
“Execution—getting the task done,
making it happen—is the most
unappreciated skill of an effective
business leader.”
Louis V. Gerstner
“Any damn fool can write a plan.
It’s the execution that gets you all
screwed up.”
Charles S. Noble (1999)
“Strategies are intellectually simple;
their execution is not.”
Lawrence A. Bossidy
former CEO Allied-Signal
“All men make mistakes, but only
wise men learn from their mistakes.”
Sir Winston Churchill
“A good plan violently executed now is
better than a perfect plan executed
next week.”
George S. Patton
“No plan survives the first two
minutes of battle.”
Helmuth Von Moltke
Chief of the Imperial German General Staff,
1858-88
“Great execution beats great strategy
99% of the time. (Make that 100% of
the time)”
Tom Peters
“An outstanding strategy weakly
executed will always be trumped by a
weak strategy with outstanding
execution.”
Bob Legge
“However beautiful the strategy, you
should occasionally look at the
results.”
Sir Winston Churchill
“Some people want it to happen, some
wish it would happen, others make it
happen.”
Michael Jordan
“Companies that out-execute their
competitors have communicated
crystal-clear messages to all their
employees.”
Louis V. Gerstner
“At the end of the day, strategy is
about the actions you take.
Therefore, one of the highest
priorities of a top-management
strategy forum is to ensure disciplined
implementation of key strategic
initiatives.”
Mckinsey
“A leader who says , ‘I’ve got ten
priorities’ don’t know himself what he
is talking about – he doesn't know
himself what the most important
things are…Leaders who execute well
focus on a few clear priorities that
everyone can grasp. You’ve got to
have these few clearly realistic goals
and priorities which will influence the
overall performance of the company.”
Larry Bossidy,
former CEO of Honeywell
“Executing strategy is a job for a
company’s whole management team,
not just for a few senior managers.
"The CEO and the major unit heads
are ultimately responsible for
ensuring the strategy is successfully
executed. However the execution
process affects every part of the firm. ”
Thompson,
Strickland and Gamble
“It’s not so much the uniqueness of
your strategy that mattes nowadays –
it's the strength of your execution.”
Peter Loscher
President & CEO of Siemens
“One does not plan and then try to
make circumstances fit those plans.
One tries to make plans for the
circumstances.”
George S. Patton Jr.
“I always found that plans are useless,
but planning is indispensable.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
“A perfect strategy today will not be
perfect tomorrow as conditions
change.”
Robin Speculand
“Short term implementation is
incremental.
Long term in transformational.”
Robin Speculand
“Every strategy is marked with a plan
and a destination. Don't lose sight of
the destination.”
Robin Speculand
“Strategy without implementation is
not worth the paper its written on.”
Robin Speculand
“Strategy is about making the tough
choices. Implementation is about
taking the right actions.”
Robin Speculand
“Nine out of 10 companies fail to
execute their strategy. To be
competitive you must excel at
execution.”
Robin Speculand