The Execution Gap Is Not a Mystery
According to data, there is a particular kind of meeting that happens in boardrooms across most of the world. It happens the day after the strategy retreat, when the energy is still high and the slides are still fresh. It happens again six months later, when the energy has dissipated and nobody quite remembers what was decided. And it happens a year later, when the original targets are quietly revised downward and the explanation is always some version of this statement: the environment was difficult.
The environment is always difficult. That has never been the variable that separates organizations that execute from those that merely plan.
The execution gap — the consistent, measurable distance between what organizations say they will do and what they actually do — is not a mystery. It follows patterns that are remarkably similar across sectors, sizes, and geographies. And because it follows patterns, it can be understood, addressed and replicated.
What the research shows
According to research published by Harvard Business Review, up to 90% of organizational strategies are not executed successfully. A landmark study by Kaplan and Norton found that more than 95% of employees in the average organization cannot name even one of their company’s top strategic priorities.
Harvard Business Review’s own analysis found that strategic misalignment wastes an average of 60% of a company’s resources3, and this is not because the strategy is wrong, but because the organization never operationalized it.
These are global figures. In operating environments characterized by regulatory unpredictability, talent volatility, and infrastructure constraints, conditions that are familiar to most African markets, the execution failure rate is almost certainly higher still. The cost is higher too. And the organizations most exposed to that cost are often the ones who do not yet know they are exposed.
