Is strategy in trouble?

Byline: Roger Stewart

Is strategy in trouble? The only certainty about a strategy is that something will go wrong, writes RECENT research provides worrying insights: in most organisations 60% to 80% strategy delivers significantly less than promised and 80% of executives will sacrifice long-term value-adding projects to make short-term earnings targets.

This is a problem of values, not strategy. Strategic blunders and execution missteps cause seven times more loss of shareholder value than all the governance compliance scandals combined. Most important strategic decisions are made outside strategic planning sessions and few senior executives are satisfied with the way they make these decisions.

Of the companies that reach the pinnacle of their industry, 95% become average within 10 years and within 40 years more than 80% of them will have disappeared. Less than four of an original 10000 will still be in the superior stratum.

In strategy, most executives map a route to and through the future as though they …