Vision and Execution

During my days in business school we spent an inordinate amount on time on business plans and strategic planning and much less time on what has become most critical to  most leaders  ” implementation/execution – i.e. “exercising our plan” by operationally working to timelines within a budget to successfully meet our goals. This is supported in a piece from the Franklin Covey Institute that states the following:

” … a mediocre strategy that is well-executed is infinitely more valuable than a great strategy that sits on a shelf. Unfortunately, studies have shown that organizational failure is primarily caused by the inability to execute—a lack of clarity on key goals, vague indicators of success, and low levels of accountability”.

As to “great strategy that sits on a shelf”, I think Thomas Edison put it best when he said:

“Vision without execution is hallucination”.

For you history buffs, this quote is a variation on an ancient  Japanese proverb  – “Vision  without action is a daydream”.