Surveying the gap: nearly half of all leaders see a disconnect between strategy and execution: you know you have a great vision for your company, so why can't you seem to bring it to fruition?(SELECTED TOPIC)

As a leader, you have a clear vision for your company and are 100 percent committed to pursuing it. But something is going wrong between the creation of that vision and your company's ability to make it happen. What that something might be is all too often a murky mystery. If you can relate to this scenario, your company is suffering from what Rick Lepsinger, president of OnPoint Consulting, calls "the strategy-execution gap." In an effort to quantify this pervasive, frustrating problem, he conducted a survey ... and the results were stunning.

"We discovered that almost half of the leaders surveyed--49 percent--do perceive a gap between their organizations' ability to develop and communicate sound strategies and their ability to implement those strategies," says Lepsinger. "That didn't surprise us, as our work with clients prepared us for that result. However, we were shocked, and a bit dismayed, to find that of these respondents, 64 percent don't have full confidence that their companies will be able to close the gap."

The survey involved more than 400 respondents at the assistant manager level or above: general managers, vice presidents, assistant vice presidents, directors, department heads and managers. The majority of companies included in the survey had over 2,000 employees and annual revenues exceeding $250 million. Five primary industry segments represented were financial services, insurance, pharmaceuticals/chemicals, healthcare and manufacturing.

The 49 percent statistic alone should be a sobering wake-up call for companies everywhere. And if you do have a strategy-execution gap, the 64 percent statistic should underscore the need to take quick and dramatic action to solve the problem. But don't despair: Lepsinger says other findings from the survey offer some clues that may help you get started on the right track.

Surprise ... "vision" isn't the problem. The majority of respondents (75 percent) believe their companies have clear and inspiring visions. Furthermore, among those who perceive a gap, 69 percent believe the strategies are realistic and 63 percent believe the visions are clear and inspiring. So the gap is not likely to be a result of unrealistic, poorly articulated visions, or unclear or unattainable strategies.

"This finding contradicts conventional wisdom, which is that the real challenge is crafting the direction of the company and gaining the buy-in and commitment of the employee population," says Lepsinger. "Proponents of this idea would argue that once a company has a vision in place and gets everyone on board, the rest is all downhill. Our study shows the fallacy of that thinking."

So what is contributing to the gap? Eight central factors--a mix of structure, systems, and leader behaviors--set apart those companies whose employees have confidence in their company's ability to effectively execute from those with reported strategy-execution gaps. In other words, "no gap" respondents gave these factors significantly higher ratings than "gap" respondents. Even more compelling, the first three of the factors listed also differentiated the "optimists" (those who reported a gap, but had confidence it could be closed) from the "doubters" (those who lacked confidence in their organizations' ability to close the gap).