From Strategy to Practice
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{Excerpt} Strategic reversals are quite commonly failures of execution. In many cases, a strategy is abandoned out of impatience or because of pressure for an instant payoff before it has had a chance to take root and yield results. Or its focal point is allowed to drift overtime. To navigate a strategy, one must maintain a balance between strategizing and learning modes of thinking. Despite worldwide attention to strategic planning, the notion of strategic practice is surprisingly new. This owes to widespread perception that strategic reversals owe to strategic miscalculations—the strategy was not sufficiently perceptive, imaginative, or visionary. Alternatively, it was too much of a good thing. But the truth is that strategic reversals are quite commonly failures of execution. In many cases, a strategy is abandoned out of impatience or because of pressure for an instant payoff before it has had a chance to take root and yield results. Or, its focal point is allowed to drift over time. To draw a strategy is relatively easy but to execute it is difficult. Strategy is both a macro and a micro phenomenon that depends on synchronization. For that reason, it is worthwhile to examine a few elements of a disciplined process for systematically reviewing, evaluating, prioritizing, sequencing, managing, redirecting, and, if necessary,even canceling strategic initiatives.