STRATEGY EXECUTION – KOLBUSAS HIGH-SPEED
The existence of a clear strategy, i.e. an idea of the future that can be told (no PowerPoint!), is the first prerequisite if you want to pick up speed in implementation. As already mentioned, many strategy implementations fail not because of bad ideas, but because too few people involved are really passionate about the strategy. There are many reasons for this.
One of these causes is that many companies and managers act too rationally. Although they argue stringently, they do not manage to get their managers and employees emotionally behind the strategy. Logical insight may be enough to get a project off the ground, but when difficulties arise, there is no motivation to overcome them with energy. If you really want to be fast, you have to give it your all. If this “everything” is not there, implementation will fail at the very first problems.
Another reason for the failure of strategy implementation is the fact that it has to be carried out alongside the operational business. Without question, this places a considerable burden on both the people executing it and the organization as a whole, which can only be overcome by a great effort of will. If you want organizations to achieve more than they thought they could, you have to give them the following:
a clear and plausible reason why they should do things, an ambitious goal that they are passionate about and the confidence that they can achieve it.
KOLBUSA’S HIGH-SPEED STRATEGY EXECUTION is based on seven elements that companies go through on the way to strategy implementation.
1. PURPOSE
The purpose of entrepreneurial activity is understood and formulated as the contribution with which the organization makes the world a better place. In order to experience high implementation speed and productivity, it is necessary for the organization to achieve more than it considers possible. This performance can only come from a clear understanding of purpose. The purpose can be seen as a kind of “cool story” in a motivating sentence. It describes the higher purpose of the company.
Positive examples:
“We are conducting research in the field of autonomous driving so that people can get from A to B in a relaxed and accident-free manner.”
“Our materials replace plastic to relieve the oceans of microplastics.”
Negative examples:
“We have the most satisfied customers.”
“We deliver the most innovative ERP solutions.”
>> HOW-TO
In an initial task, a group of five to seven managers (the so-called strategy core team) describe what they personally find meaningful about working in their company. A subsequent workshop discusses the results in order to formulate a purpose for the next five to ten years. The key question is: Why are we here? What really gives meaning to what we do if we consciously disregard purely economic aspects such as turnover, profit, etc.?
2. GOALS/ASPIRATIONS
A company’s goals translate the higher social and ethical values defined by its purpose into quantifiable results. The target values consist of abstract figures, data, facts and claims. The driving idea is:
What goals have we set ourselves for the next two to five years in order to get closer to our purpose? Vague relative terms such as “more”, “higher”, “more innovative” are expressly prohibited. Abstract variables are turnover, return, market share, share price, quality features, customer satisfaction, etc.
Positive example:
“In five years, 80% of the parts we produce will be made from alternatives to plastic. We will achieve a market share of 30 percent and a profitability of 12 percent.”
Negative example:
“In the medium term, we will achieve higher returns through higher project throughput and higher sales through increased marketing.”
>> HOW-TO
Management brainstorms to determine which meaningful target figures (see above) should be used to reliably evaluate success. A focus quantifies three to four variables (no more!) that fit the company and promise the most relevant results. More variables unnecessarily increase complexity, which is also the reason why balanced scorecards are a clever concept, but do not work in practice.
3. OVERALL PICTURE/EMOTIONS
The overall target image, the strategy – i.e. the future state – is an emotionally stirring visual image of the company as a whole and what this state will look like once its goals have been achieved. It is important to always create alternative target images without exception (as in the family example). Such a target image is always a retrospective view from the future: what exactly will be different in two to five years’ time, and in concrete terms?
It is important to visualize the events of the future in your mind’s eye today and to be able to experience them emotionally.
The overall target image generates the enthusiasm and the emotional boost with which people and companies are prepared to give more for the targets than they previously thought possible.
Positive example:
“With our new sensor-supported generation of machines, we inspire and retain customers with precise evaluations of their material flow and efficiency-enhancing suggestions for production control.”
Negative example:
“We have become the market leader with innovative new products and the customer champion with state-of-the-art products.” This is the typical anemic and abstract chatter that comes out of colorful PowerPoint presentations. Nobody knows exactly what is meant by the terms.
Other empty terms:
“greater market penetration”,
“higher customer satisfaction”,
“more profitable supplier relationships”.
>> HOW-TO
The core team, consisting of those who will later be responsible for implementation and a few creative lateral thinkers (at best a maximum of seven people!), is given the task of writing a future story in the form of a formulated story on one or two A4 pages: Imagine a journey into the future and sketch out what it will look like.
Which events are different from today and with what tangible consequences? Images are more important than numbers! In terms of perspective and emotion, the managers should have already been where they really want to be.
Important: The picture is always already finished, the goals have been achieved – only that is described.
Neither relative terms (“more”, “higher”, “more intensive”) nor activity descriptions (“We do …” “We organize …”) are permitted.
Only when there are concrete values in the room is there an incentive to rub shoulders with creative energy.
This is followed by a detailed discussion of the target images in the core team. The target images are exchanged and everyone comments on the others’ drafts based on four aspects:
1. what do I find particularly good?
2. what do I not understand?
3. what am I (still) missing?
4. what do I see differently
The participants critically examine the respective drafts in an open discourse. A common target image is developed from the discussion of the overall target images, i.e. the participants decide on a strategic target state.
Anyone who does not exercise any necessary criticism here is acting disloyally! After all, it’s about the best result for the company, not about preserving vested interests or raising one’s profile and just as little about sympathy, a lack of courage to speak out and misunderstood consideration!
4. DRILL-DOWN/CLARITY
The drill-down involves breaking down the company’s overall strategic objectives (as developed in phase III) into the objectives of the individual areas. This is because all too often it is only supposedly clear what exactly is meant by the strategy in detail on the basis of the overall target picture. Especially in top management, we always think that everyone involved already understands this. However, this is by no means the case.
Practice has taught me time and again that in many cases the individual managers at the next level are not really clear about what exactly is meant by the strategy. This is why each area involved in value creation must describe the following: “How will my area look in two to three years?” The focus here is always on what will be different after the time travel. The style is narrative, and it is reported from the future in the present tense: not “we will be something”, but “we already are”.
Positive example:
“With the Müller Machines For Better Life brand, we won the Marketing Award 2025 for sustainable industry in the mechanical engineering sector thanks to the votes of our customers. By redesigning the interaction between the divisions, marketing is no longer an advertising department for pure brochure production, but communicates the service promise at eye level and from a single source with product and customer management.”
Negative example:
“In terms of marketing, we have succeeded in creating a brand with customers as a company with maximum service orientation because we have kept our service promise.”
>> HOW-TO
The core team, which has carried out the previous steps, represents the relevant value creation areas. It now becomes the task of each core team member to work with a workstream team from their own area (usually members of the second management level plus lateral thinkers) to develop the target picture, i.e. the story for the area – always within the framework of the overall picture (the overall strategy), but one level lower. All jobs are carried out by the workstream team in the same way as when developing the overall target picture – including the two-page story that describes the differences between tomorrow and today.
For example, if it is stated at the level of the company as a whole that customer loyalty is strengthened by intelligent service business models (formulate in the present tense!), derivations must be drawn up for the divisions. Each person responsible for value creation (division manager) must work with their workstream team to produce an essay of one to two A4 pages describing exactly what the strategy means in practice for the respective division. For the service manager, for example, this means describing in a separate target image what will actually be different in terms of cooperation, the type of service provision, etc. in two to three years’ time. The results are then distributed to the core team and discussed, taking into account the example set by the higher level.
Practical experience
Initially, managers often hate writing these essays because they haven’t done anything like this since their school days. However, always remind yourself:
Formulating a prose text requires thorough thinking. Throwing a few colorful pictures on the wall with PowerPoint and embellishing them with abstract buzzwords, on the other hand, is easy and usually not well-founded.
Force yourself and your team to write these essays, even if one or two people are initially reluctant to do so. I get feedback like this in almost every project: “Mr. Kolbusa, I must honestly say that it annoyed me at first. But once I started writing down the future, it was really fun. I can now see much more clearly in my mind’s eye what we actually want to achieve.”
5. STRATEGIC GAP/CLARITY
Once the target state has been developed at both the overall and divisional level, the emotional traction in the form of passion for this state should be present. What is still missing is the certainty that the target state has been sufficiently thought through. The next step is to use the strategic gap to clearly systematize the target image so that the gap is clear and can be closed in a targeted manner.
Properly developed, it ensures that
a) no relevant aspect is forgotten and
b) the basis for proper implementation management of the strategy is in place.
Positive example:
>> HOW-TO
First, each workstream team asks itself the following question based on its target vision story: “What are the key topics that our target vision revolves around?” For the service workstream, for example, this could mean focusing on CRM, IT equipment or the service center structure and other topics – usually eight to twelve in total – as strategic cornerstones.
Practical tip
In my projects, I often hear managers object: “It’s taking far too long until we have all the stories and the strategic gap. Why don’t we just get started?”
However, practice proves that this kind of actionism pays off later on. Every manager who has tried the approach described confirms to me how rewarding it is, because many blind spots have been discovered and illuminated and it is finally clear at a glance – on an Excel sheet – what all needs to be done to achieve the target state, so that you feel much more comfortable with and during implementation.
6. GAP-TARGETIN/FOCUS
If the strategic gaps are clearly broken down, it is clear for the strategy as a whole what the exact target state of the company looks like, right down to the divisions. There is no WHDJG phenomenon among all managers involved (what exactly does that mean?).
The target picture stories make this clear, and the individual pieces of the puzzle in the strategic gap describe the individual target states that need to be achieved. The strategy is therefore well thought out. It is only here in gap targeting that prioritization takes place: Which or which few (important!) gap elements should be closed first? So where should the implementation of the strategy be driven forward?
A few things should be brought forward quickly, not many just a little. Figuratively speaking, it is important to drill through a few planks completely and quickly instead of working on all of them a little and only half-heartedly.
Positive example:
Three to a maximum of five gap elements that are processed first, i.e. closed, at the maximum possible speed using so-called OKRs (Objective Key Results).
Negative example:
The attempt to set up an inefficient giant program with either as many parallel projects as possible or with overall planning. Practice shows time and again that the strategy becomes frayed in this way and no real momentum is created.
>> HOW-TO
Prioritizing by using a spider diagram to work on the most logical or largest gap elements first can be considered, but is often not necessary. In my experience, the great advantage of breaking things down into small and tangible pieces of the puzzle is that the common sense of the workstream teams is usually enough to make the right choice.
7. PROGRESS ATTACK/SPEED
Once the gap elements in the strategic gap have been identified and the first pieces of the puzzle have been targeted in gap targeting, the next step is implementation, which should take place at high speed. To achieve this, an emotional target state is required for each element.
However, as this often implies a long period of time, in my experience it is usually too far away for human motivation. For this reason, all elements with a term of more than one year must be divided into Objective Key Results of nine to twelve months and then tackled. It is important to close the individual strategic gap elements in steps with a well-considered scope (objectives) on the basis of monthly sprints so that you can be proud of them each month and see that you are making progress based on a few progress criteria. The OKRs deliberately refrain from assigning target values for these criteria, as these generally create a culture of shame and guilt instead of a momentum culture based on trust and passion.
Positive example:
You can find positive examples of progress indicators in the following excursus Objective Key Results (OKR)
Negative example:
Negative examples on the subject of progress indicators can be found in the following excursus Objective Key Results (OKR)
>> HOW-TO
What exactly has been achieved in a year with regard to this one gap element of the individual strategic cornerstone? That is what matters now.
Let’s imagine that our mechanical engineering company has decided to build a state-of-the-art technical college as one of its strategic cornerstones for the development of globally unique predictive maintenance technology. It is to be completed in three years. He also wants to cooperate with renowned universities on research. As great as the goal is, a period of three years is too long to maintain the necessary passion of those involved. So Workstream decided on the objective of proudly breaking ground together with the mayor in nine to twelve months.
Further OKRs will follow until the opening and until the contractual agreements with the cooperating universities have been concluded.
The familiar rules also apply to the OKR: It must be a motivating, visual future state that people are passionate about – no empty relative terms and no activities.
Each OKR, in turn, requires smart progress indicators that can be used to determine progress each month. For the technical center and the path to the ground-breaking ceremony, this can mean tracking the number of completed sub-concepts or the number of employees involved in the design.
An OKR therefore always consists of
1. an emotionally charged objective and
2. one to five key results (progress indicators) that can be used each month to determine that progress is being made in the project.
As already mentioned, the selected progress variables deliberately dispense with fixed target values. The only requirement is that progress must actually be made month after month. The necessary drive is achieved by the fact that the selected OKRs, as well as the elements of the corporate objectives and the overall target picture, are demanding and exciting. As already mentioned:
Strategy and its implementation are first and foremost an emotional matter.
Progress
