"Execution success is 70% more likely for 1 in 2 businesses"

BP's CEO Tony Hayward is famously known to have stated 'Our problem is not about the strategy itself, but about our execution of it' - a statement which rings true for all businesses not least those undertaking strategic reviews, rightsizing and realigning to combat market conditions. I've been dipping in Kaplan & Norton's new book, ‘The Execution Premium’, which is also the source of the statistic in the subject line. There were a number of other interesting findings from their recent research of businesses operating a balanced scorecard, which i thought i'd share:

• More than 1 in 2 companies still do NOT have a formal system for strategy execution
• Of this number, 75% report below average performance of their strategies
• Whereas, 70% of those with a formal system report consistently outperforming their nearest competitors.

With the advent of on-demand technologies and as traditional guardians of performance management, is this HR/L&D's opportunity to seize their long awaited place in the boardroom? The time is ripe to smash through those silo's and empower your business with a strategy execution capability!

David Norton's recent (Dec 08) webcast entitled: ‘Does a Management System help cope with a recession?’ is definately worth a watch.