Ideas in Action :
The following was taken from an article written by Uday Arur
Barriers to Success – Strategy or Execution?

Recent studies have shown that organizations that have gone through the effort of developing a written strategy fail miserably at execution. According to Paul Niven in his book “The Balanced Scorecard”:

Only 10% of organizations execute their strategy

Only 25% of managers and executives have incentives linked to strategy

85% of executive teams spend less than 1 hour per month on strategy

60% of organizations don’t link budgets to strategy

Who will our customers be? How many will we have?

Those are pretty dismal facts about commitment and results as they pertain to strategy execution.

However, Roger Martin (The Execution Trap, HBR July-August 2010), believes that the idea that a strategy can be brilliant and execution poor is flawed.

To Martin, the flaw stems from the common metaphor used to illustrate the opposing views regarding strategy execution – the one where the organizations “thinkers” come up with the strategy and doers “execute”.

Instead, Martin proposes an alternative metaphor, which he believes can correct the flaw in the thinking. He compares the organization with a white-water river, where choices cascade down from upstream to downstream in the organizational hierarchy. This approach would enable more freedom to adapt decisions to the specifics of the environment in which each organizational level operates, all within a larger framework and direction given by the strategy (the river). Unlike the strategy-execution approach, in which leaders dictate and set strategies and expect subordinates to mechanically follow, the choice-cascade model has senior managers empower workers by allowing them to use their best judgement in the scenarios they encounter. But, says Martin, to effectively enable those individual choices, a choice maker “upstream” must set the context for the downstream.

Martin suggests four ways the choice maker can help his employees make better choices:

Explain the choice that has been made and the rationale for it

Explicitly identify the next downstream choice

Assist in making the downstream choice as needed

Commit to revisiting and modifying the choice based on downstream feedback

Because downstream choices are valued and feedback is encouraged, the framework enables employees to send information back upstream, improving the knowledge base of decision makers higher up and enabling everyone in the organization to make better choices. And when workers are made to feel empowered, the whole organization wins!

The first metaphor, which treats strategy separate from execution, can be associated with a mechanistic, command and control thinking, whereas, what Martin seems to suggest is an organic, systems thinking with an interrelated, integrated view of strategy.

Which side are you on?
Uday Arur CMC, CEQM, CBA
Business Coach
www.arurbizcoach.com

The European Coaching Institute, one of Europe’s leading accreditation organizations for coaches and coach-training providers, is proud to announce it is currently operating in 74 countries. Announcing this in a press release Mr. Gerard O’Donovan the current CEO of the ECI said that the Institute’s main objective is to continue to expand and promote best coaching practice.  As an internationally focused coaching institute, the ECI strives to raise awareness of professional coaching standards by developing contacts in new countries where the services can be launched. Mr. O’Donovan said that the ECI will bring the same quality of life coach training to every country where it operates. 

The initial coaching courses will be provided by coaches from the headquarters in London.  These highly experienced and skilled coaches will help to create a team of trained coaches in each new country, who can take the coaching activities forward. This model has been successfully adopted by the ECI in many countries.  Mr. O’Donovan said that coaches and other personnel from the Institute’s headquarters often visit the ECI centers in different countries to ensure that the high professional standards of the ECI are maintained.   

The ECI is committed to getting the profession of coaching accredited and regulated at national and international levels. To achieve this objective it has set-up standards and accreditation levels which will be maintained across all centers. There are five levels of accreditations which can be attained by the coaches in different stages. The training materials available for each accreditation level are certified by the Institute’s headquarters in London. 

In countries where English is not the primary language, the ECI has translated the training material into the local language. This has benefited many people who are interested in life coaching but not fluent in English. This step has been appreciated in many countries, such as Poland and Romania.

The ECI has also created an international register of accredited coaches. This database is open to clients who are interested in accessing the coaching services of ECI accredited coaches. Mr. O’Donovan said that this will help life coaches to easily find assignments and also help organizations quickly find high quality life coaches for training purposes.

Mr. O’Donovan further said that in this current economic climate where people are working under stress, life coaching helps them to excel in the difficult conditions. He said that demand for life coaches has seen an upward climb in recent times. The ECI is putting extra resources across all the 74 countries where it operates to fulfill the additional demand, including new partnerships with local companies.  The ECI will continue with the same model of expansion wherever it launches new operations.  Mr. O’Donovan said that local partners are playing a major role in helping the ECI launch operations. Most of the partners are local companies who have prior experience in life coaching and consulting. This is helping them to quickly adopt the practices and standards of the ECI and implement it in the operations.

Organizations and individuals are realizing the benefits of life coaching and enrolling themselves on courses to become coaches or accessing the services of life coaches.

About ECI

The ECI formed in 1999 was formed in 1999 as a not-for-profit organization to be a force for good in coaching. It was formed by a group of professional coaches and continues to be run by them. The ECI is an internationally focused organization, building, maintaining, raising awareness and working to promote best practice while providing value added benefits to its members.