Vision vs. Execution: Why Great Ideas Need Great Implementation
Vision gets people excited, but great ideas implementation makes dreams real. Many leaders start companies with big dreams, but
Vision gets people excited, but great ideas implementation makes dreams real.
Many leaders start companies with big dreams, but the crucial question becomes: How much of that vision is actually happening?
The Problem with Too Many Ideas
Many leaders fall into the same trap. They get excited about every new idea. They think each thought is brilliant and must be acted on immediately.
This creates problems. Teams start working on one project, then the leader has a new idea. The team stops the first project and starts the new one. Then another idea comes along.
Soon, teams lose motivation. They know that whatever they start today will change tomorrow. Staff stop getting excited about new projects because they expect everything to change.
Why Ideas Fail Without Proper Execution
According to a study by The Economist Intelligence Unit, 90 percent of senior executives say they failed to reach all their strategic goals because of poor implementation.
67% of well-formulated business strategies fail due to poor execution. The problem isn’t lack of good ideas. The problem is not finishing what you start.
Real examples show this pattern:
The Apple Newton MessagePad was ahead of its time, featuring handwriting recognition, a touchscreen interface, and a sleek design. It promised to revolutionize how people took notes, organized their schedules, and interacted with technology. But within a few years, the Newton was discontinued, becoming one of Apple’s most infamous failures. The problem wasn’t a lack of vision. The Newton was an ambitious idea, but it suffered from poor prioritization, misaligned strategy, and inefficient resource allocation.
Target had difficulty expanding into the Canadian market due to management’s inability to effectively communicate strategic goals, operational procedures, and differences in customer expectations to Canadian employees. As a result, Target had to close all Canadian operations.
What Makes Execution Hard
Several things make strategic execution success difficult:
Poor Communication Plans fail simply because they don’t get communicated to all the people involved. “I’ve done consulting where a major strategic thrust has been developed, and a month or two later I go down four or five levels and ask people how they’re doing. They haven’t even heard of the program.”
No Follow-Through The failure to follow through is a major cause of poor execution. How many meetings have you attended where people left without firm conclusions about who would do what and when?
Wrong Resource Allocation Circuit City was a successful electronics company that faced financial challenges caused by poor resource allocation. Instead of selling off risky business acquisitions, the company eliminated its most valuable resource: experienced sales staff. That decision proved detrimental when the company lost its competitive edge in providing quality customer service and industry knowledge.
Resistance to Change JCPenny’s failed 2011 rebranding strategy. Under new leadership, the company tried to implement a strategy focused on modernizing stores and pricing models, which was met with internal resistance. Longtime staff and sales associates felt disconnected from the new direction.
How to Improve Great Ideas Implementation
Set Clear Responsibilities Never finish a meeting without clarifying what the follow-through will be, who will do it, when and how they will do it, and what resources they will use, and how and when the next review will take place and with whom.
Measure What Matters Defining the full range of metrics that matter – spanning financial, operational, and risk management is a cornerstone of success. Managing these metrics with excellence requires structuring a steady cadence of daily work that supports seamless execution with clear expectations for employee behavior.
Test Before You Scale Putting all your energy in executing an unproven idea is called “premature scaling” and can kill your business. Investing in the ‘search’ phase will help you substantially reduce the risk of failure. This means you need to continuously design prototypes, test them in the field with experiments, capture your learnings and redesign accordingly.
Get Team Buy-In One of the most effective ways to earn your team’s support is by communicating your company’s core values—your business’s larger purpose that inspires and guides employee behavior—and how it aligns with your strategy.
The Search vs. Execution Phases
“Search” means producing market evidence that your idea is going to work. “Execution” means turning ideas into a real business. In other words, you start seriously investing in marketing to acquire customers and you build the infrastructure to service them.
You should only move to execution when you have evidence of three things:
- You’re addressing something customers care about
- Your value proposition is attracting users and customers
- You have a profitable and scalable business model
Why Execution Beats Innovation
“Ideas are cheap. Execution is Everything” — Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneur
Everyone has got plenty of great ideas. However, unless those ideas are executed well, they are of absolutely no use. As an investor, no doubt, good ideas interest me. But guess what? Even if you think you have a great idea, chances are there are ten other people who are thinking on similar lines. The ones who can quickly execute on their ideas come out as winners.
This pattern appears everywhere in business. Companies with simple ideas but great execution often beat companies with revolutionary ideas but poor follow-through.
The Leadership Challenge
Strategic leadership is more than just a charismatic personality. It’s more than just a single goal. Rather, it’s a shared and compelling vision that changes the day-to-day ambitions and behaviors of every single member of an organization.
Leaders must balance two needs: having vision and ensuring great ideas implementation. Vision without execution remains just a dream. Execution without vision becomes busy work with no purpose.
Making the Change
The solution isn’t to stop having ideas. The solution is to be more disciplined about which ideas you pursue and how you follow through.
Ask yourself these questions:
- How much of our current vision is actually happening?
- What projects did we start but never finish?
- How often do we change direction before completing what we started?
- Do our teams trust that we’ll stick with initiatives long enough to see results?
Execution Over Ideas
“I’d rather have a first-rate execution and second-rate strategy any time than a brilliant idea and mediocre management.” – Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase
Great ideas are common. Strategic execution success is rare. The companies and leaders who master both don’t just survive, they create lasting value in competitive markets.
Your next breakthrough won’t come from your next great idea. It will come from properly executing the good ideas you already have.
Sources:
- Harvard Business School Online – “5 Reasons Strategy Execution Fails” – https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/why-do-strategic-plans-fail
- ITONICS Innovation – “Why Great Ideas Fail” – https://www.itonics-innovation.com/blog/why-great-ideas-fail
- Medium/ILLUMINATION – “The Execution Gap” – https://medium.com/illumination/the-execution-gap-why-great-ideas-mean-nothing-without-great-execution-2017bed91609
- Knowledge at Wharton – “Three Reasons Why Good Strategies Fail” – https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/three-reasons-why-good-strategies-fail-execution-execution/
- Strategyzer – “Great Execution of Bad Ideas Kills Businesses” – https://www.strategyzer.com/library/great-execution-of-bad-ideas-kills-businesses
- Vistage Research – “From Vision to Victory: 3 Keys to Effective Execution” – https://www.vistage.com/research-center/business-leadership/mission-vision-purpose/20231103-effective-execution/
