DRIVING

EXECUTION
Development Guide

DDI COMPETENCY LIBRARY 3.1

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 DRIVING EXECUTION
Translating strategic priorities into operational reality; aligning communication, accountabilities,
resource capabilities, internal processes, and ongoing measurement systems to ensure that
strategic priorities yield measurable and sustainable results.

Key Actions
• Translates initiatives into actions—Determines action steps and milestones
required to implement a specific business initiative; adjusts activities or timelines
as circumstances warrant.
• Communicates to engage others—Establishes two-way communication
channels to convey business strategies and plans; engages people by helping
them understand the reasons behind organizational initiatives and the value of
assigned responsibilities for the individual, team, and organization.
• Creates accountability—Ensures that those responsible for implementing a
strategic initiative have role clarity and accountability for required actions and
outputs as well as the direction and authority to act in a way consistent with
organizational values.
• Ensures skills and readiness—Identifies and develops human resource
capabilities to drive specific strategies (may include training or acquisition of
needed skills and knowledge).
• Aligns systems and process—Identifies and aligns systems and processes (e.g.,
compensation, decision making, resource allocation, performance management) to
support implementation of specific strategies.
• Measures progress—Establishes criteria and systems (including lead and lag
measures) to track ongoing progress toward goals; follows up on assigned
responsibilities.

QUICK TIPS
• Identify measurable goals that will command people’s attention and focus their energy on
concrete action.
• Make sure that the strategies are clear, that the leadership team agrees to them, and that
their groups can understand and communicate them.
• Establish criteria and systems to track progress and results.
• Explain performance expectations that are driven by strategic priorities. Provide practical
examples of how strategy and culture should guide decision making and actions.

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 • Encourage two-way communication. Set up procedures to solicit employee input and
address ongoing concerns.
• Clarify expectations and accountabilities to harness staff energy to achieve focused results.
• Identify your direct reports’ capabilities and how they can contribute to strategic priorities.

Questions to Guide Development

Use these questions to help you determine your level (or your employees level) of proficiency at
this competency.
• Competing strategic priorities in an organization can be a major obstacle to success. Describe
a time when you had to manage competing strategic priorities.
• Describe a time when you had to get the support of a wide range of stakeholders for a
proposed strategy or plan. What was your approach?
• Describe a time when you had to significantly modify work systems, policies, or procedures so
they aligned with new strategic directives.
• Describe a time when you set challenging goals that your direct reports thought were too
difficult to achieve. How did you ensure the team remained engaged and the goals were met?
• Describe a time when you wanted to change the culture of your organization, department, or
business unit. How did you align the people strategy for your area with this desired change?
• Describe how you have planned tasks and acquired resources in order to implement a long-
range corporate vision.
• Describe the methods that you have used to measure the implementation results of short-,
medium-, and long-range plans.
• Ensuring execution of a strategic objective when key resources are spread across a number of
locations can be challenging. Describe a time when you had to align resources from different
locations to accomplish a strategic objective.
• How do you decide when and how to communicate a new directive from senior management?
Describe a situation in which you applied this strategy.
• Implementing change can be a challenge. Tell me about a time when you were unable to put in
place an important organizational system (control, compensation, communication, etc.) to
support a critical new directive. What difficulties resulted?
• It's difficult to know what data or information is most critical for monitoring an important project.
Tell me about a time this happened to you. What impact did this have on the project?
• It's not always easy to achieve the objectives of a complex initiative. Describe a difficult
initiative that you were responsible for. What approach did you take to execute the initiative?

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 • Sometimes in a major project or initiative, people need to change how they spend their time
and do their jobs. How have you aligned people with new responsibilities? Give me an example
of when you've done this.
• Tell me about a time when you had to link a general directive from senior management to
individual performance expectations. How did you do this?
• Tell me about one of the most innovative strategies or methods you have used to implement
strategic initiatives.
• Tell me about one of the reward structures or incentives you established to help accomplish a
major new directive.
• The success of an initiative depends on the people who manage the day-to-day activities.
Describe a time when you needed to make sure that people were accountable for their actions.
• Think of a business policy or regulatory change that had a direct impact on your operations.
What did you do to align your direct reports' policies, procedures, and systems with the new
policy or regulation?
• When a new initiative or strategy is launched, people need to know about it. Describe a recent
communication plan you put together for a new strategy or initiative.
• When setting a strategy, we set timeline and milestone objectives. Can you think of a time
when timelines or objectives needed to be changed at mid-stream? How did you adjust to the
new circumstances?
DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES
Self-Directed
• Prepare an action plan for each of your objectives that are linked to a strategic priority.
Identify the intermediate steps that need to be achieved to reach the ultimate objective.
These milestones will help you move forward, identify points to measure progress, and
flesh out components to which team members can contribute.
• When developing a plan, consider the financial, human, and physical resources you will
need to achieve your goals. How will you align those resources? Are there any approval
processes you need to consider?
• Develop a method to track progress on your action plans, including external variables. On a
regular basis, identify adjustments needed in light of actual progress and the environment.
• Select a strategic initiative that you are currently leading. Identify the strengths and
weaknesses of your implementation by comparing your plan to the Key Actions for this
competency. Identify what you will do to improve your implementation.
• Identify your personal strengths and weaknesses in using communication to clarify
business strategy and sustain commitment. Consider your competency in formal

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 communication, informal communication, and leader behavior. Develop an action plan to
address weaker areas.
• Conduct regular check-ins with team members to ensure that responsibilities and
expectations are clear. Reinforce responsibilities by commending individuals for performing
their specific responsibilities. Quickly identify areas where individuals are duplicating effort
or activities.
• Select a strategic initiative that you are about to lead. Identify the skills and behavioral
competencies that employees must display to achieve a successful implementation.
Assess potential players against these criteria. Create an action plan to match the right
players to the right jobs. Then, create development plans to leverage their strengths and
address gaps in competencies and performance.
• Pair individuals who need to develop a specific skill with a colleague who is strong in that
area. Monitor progress to ensure that learning is occurring.
• Establish criteria and systems to track progress and results. Set up measurement methods
to track whether your team is achieving your strategic priorities. Identify lead and lag
measures to help you assess progress and ultimate results. Consider quality, quantity,
cost, and timeliness.
• If you have a goal that is not being realized, determine where the real cause might lie by
considering each of the Key Actions for this competency. Create an action plan to improve
how you’re executing this business strategy.
• Identify those organizational systems and processes that will have the most significant
impact on achieving your strategic priorities. Then, consider how well each system currently
helps or hinders achieving each strategy.
• Identify a strategic priority that you were unsuccessful in achieving. With this in mind,
review the performance plans of people from your business unit. Do the accountabilities in
their plans align with that priority? If not, adjust their individual performance plans and those
of their direct reports to make sure they reflect your priorities.
Partnerships
• Evaluate the strategic priorities for your group and determine what each member of the
team will contribute. Agree on objectives that are measurable, attainable, relevant, and time
bound. Consider as a group the collective coverage of the strategic priorities, checking for
overlap, conflicting goals, and opportunities for synergy.
• Seek coaching from an expert. Explain your execution plan to a peer who is successful at
driving initiatives to full execution. Ask for specific feedback in terms of the Key Actions for
this competency.

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 • Ask your manager for feedback on your ability to drive execution. Have your recent
initiatives been successful? How might you adjust your approach in the future? Are you
using the right resources?
• Meet with an individual who has a strong reputation for creating teams that consistently
deliver results. How has this person been able to execute initiatives in the face of skill gaps
or other resourcing challenges? What techniques has he or she used to motivate others to
accept accountability and drive execution?
• Observe an executive who is particularly strong at communicating a vision and translating it
into actionable steps that relate to others. What behaviors does this person exhibit that you
could incorporate into your style? How does this person adjust communication style with
different audiences?
• Determine what each member of the leadership team will contribute to the strategic
priorities by creating objectives for each person with respect to each priority. The objectives
should be measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound.
• Identify which team members will be accountable for which objectives. Identify clear owners
for individual contributions to each business strategy. Once you have established these
accountabilities, make people’s performance evaluations and rewards dependent on
achieving the objectives.

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 Targeted Assignments
• Communicate both the business and the cultural strategies to all levels of the organization.
When formulating your communication, consider three components:
 Objective—The change in behavior or the performance improvement you want to achieve.
 Strategy—A plan that includes what you will say about the strategic direction, how you will
inspire people to get behind the initiative, and how you will reinforce the communication.
 Tactics—The vehicles you will use to deliver your communication.
• Volunteer to lead the execution of a significant effort for a community organization.

ADDITIONAL LEARNING RESOURCES

Practical Advice
Browning, H. (2013). Accountability: Taking ownership of your responsibility. San Francisco:
Pfeiffer.
Bungay, S. (2011, January/February). How to make the most of your company’s strategy. Harvard
Business Review, 89(1/2), 132–140.
Covey, S.R. (2013). Execution essentials. New York: Rosetta Books.
Leverich, J. (2012, September 24). Execution is the process of winning. Enterprise, 42(8), 12–13.
Mistry, S., Antunes, C., Korda, C., & Korda, P. (2012). Leading strategy execution: How to engage
employees and implement your strategies. Philadelphia: Kogan Page.
Ruhmann, J.S. (2012, August). Strategy execution. Leadership Excellence, 28(8), 3.
Stack, L. (2014). Execution IS the strategy: How leaders achieve maximum results in minimum
time. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Straw, J., Davis, B., Scullard, M., & Kukkonen, S. (2013). The work of leaders: How vision,
alignment, and execution will change the way you lead. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
Case Studies
Beaudan, E. (2012). Creative execution: What great leaders do to unleash bold thinking and
innovation. Mississauga, ONT: John Wiley & Sons Canada.
Bossidy, L., Charan, R., & Burck, C. (2011). Execution: The discipline of getting things done. New
York: Random House.
Guillen, M.F., & Carcia-Canal, E. (2012, October). Execution as strategy. Harvard Business
Review, 90(10), 103–107.

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 Haines, G. (2011). Execution to die for: The manager’s guide to making it happen. CreateSpace
Independent Publishing.
Ricks, T.E. (2012, October). What ever happened to accountability? Harvard Business Review,
90(10), 93–100.
Contemporary and Classic Insights
Beaudan, E. (2010, March/April). Creative execution. Ivey Business Journal, 74(2), 1–2.
Bernthal, P.R., Rogers, R.W., & Smith, A.B. (2003). Managing performance: Building accountability
for organizational success. Pittsburgh, PA: Development Dimensions International. Retrieve
from http://www.ddiworld.com/resources/library/trend-research/managing-performance-
building-accountability-es
Kanter, R.M. (2011, March). Zoom in, zoom out. Harvard Business Review, 89(3), 112–116.
Lee, C.T. (2012). Good idea. Now what? How to move ideas to execution. Hoboken, NJ: John
Wiley & Sons.
MacLennan, A. (2011). Strategy execution: Translating strategy into action in complex
organizations. New York: Routledge.
Martin, R.L. (2010, July/August). The execution trap. Harvard Business Review, 88(7/8), 64–71.
McChesney, C. (2012). The 4 disciplines of execution: Achieving your wildly important goals. New
York: Free Press.
McChesney, C., Covey, S., & Huling, J. (2012, September). Execution excellence. Leadership
Excellence, 29(9), 5–6.
Health Care References
Inozu, I., Chauncey, D., Kamataris, V., & Mount, C. (2012). Performance improvement for
healthcare: Leading change with lean, six sigma, and constraints management. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
McLaughlin, D. (2010). Make it happen: Effective execution in healthcare leadership. Chicago:
Health Administration Press.
McLaughlin, D., & Olson, J. (2012). Healthcare operations management. Chicago: Health
Administration Press.

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