Every organization has a strategy. Most have a plan. Yet research shows that up to 70 percent of organizations fail to achieve their strategic goals. Why does this happen so often? The problem is rarely the strategy itself. It is the failure to execute.
Execution breaks down when the structure of the organization does not match the complexity of the work that must be done. Managers and teams become overloaded, priorities blur, and accountability fades. That is why complexity of work is the missing link between great strategy and great performance.
From Plans to Performance
A strategy describes what an organization wants to achieve. But execution depends on how the work is organized and delegated through the layers of management. Each layer must handle a different level of complexity, measured by the time span of discretion required to achieve results.
When these layers are designed properly, the organization runs smoothly. Managers add value by providing context and support, not by redoing their team’s work. When layers are missing or misaligned, everyone spends more time firefighting than focusing on value-added results.
The Science of Structure
Elliott Jaques’ research showed that each role in an organization carries a natural level of complexity, and each person has a natural capacity for solving problems of a given complexity. Aligning the two is the essence of effective organization design.
When leaders apply this science, they can diagnose why execution stalls and correct it quickly. A director struggling to meet three-year goals may be doing work better suited to a vice president. A team of managers might lack a layer that bridges daily operations to long-term planning. These are design issues, not performance issues.
Linking Strategy to the Right Work
Once the structure reflects the real complexity of the organization, accountability becomes clear and strategy cascades naturally through managerial layers. Each manager focuses on the right horizon of time and delivers results that build toward the strategic plan.
This is what I call line-of-sight strategy execution. It ensures that every person in the organization contributes meaningfully to the strategy while staying within their level of capability and accountability.
Learn How to Apply the Science
If you would like to explore how to use complexity of work to improve strategy execution in your clients’ organizations, join me for the CMC Canada Master Class: “Beyond the Org Chart – The Science and Art of Organization Design.”
In this two-hour session, I will show how to use this science to diagnose misalignment and create structures that deliver results.
