Recent research by the Conference Board asked executives across the world what their ‘greatest concerns’ were – the top two answers, surprisingly, were not external factors, but instead were:
- Excellence in Execution
- Consistent Execution of Strategy by Top Management
Nike’s Journey
I spend a lot of time developing approaches and solutions that allow for the disciplined execution of strategy within organisations – part of my ‘joined-up’ philosophy; in this case joining-up direction with delivery. At the Supply Chain World conference in Amsterdam recently, I was therefore delighted to have a second chance to listen to An Claes, Head of Innovation at Nike, on how they have managed to ‘Operationalise Excellence’. An’s story about Nike’s journey gets more impressive every time I hear it
An declared that “strategy is easy – it’s making it work that’s the hard part.” She stated that at Nike they have developed a very flat hierarchy, and are empowered to go out to, as their tagline says, ‘just do it.’
The Definition
An defines ‘operationalising excellence’ as follows:
- Operationalising: ‘Turning Vision into Reality, consistently and deliberately at all levels of the organisation’.
- Innovation: ‘Incremental and / or step change in performance against strategic objectives’
The Key
The key, says An, is to ‘boil down a strategy to something that is relevant to the people at ground level’. They had to deliberately redesign the organisation to foster the end-to-end alignment of the Supply Chain, and rotate roles so that people get to experience life on the other side of the fence. She also stated that at Nike there is ‘no hiding place’ – they have created a culture of accountability, and in doing so had to lose 12% of the people – the wrong people – as there was no place for them on the Nike bus.
Their Approach
Nike developed a process for operationalising excellence, following a Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) approach, summarised as follows;
- Define: Agree on your organisation’s ‘True North’ – the strategic and philosophical goal.
- Develop: The Plan. Create guidance and focus – ‘catchball’
- Deploy: The Plan – create an appropriate management process, and create accountability. A3 thinking – the plan must fit on a single side of A3.
- Monitor: The Plan – Nike have a 4,4,4 approach. 4 hours every Thursday looking for 2 ‘game changers’, 4 hours once a month reviewing the business performance, 4 hours once a quarter reviewing the A3 plan.
- Solve: Problems – identify constraints and disconnects, PDCA
- Improve: The System – identify what to keep, and what to stop doing.
Get it Right
An stated when this is right, you just know because ‘it catches fire, it really catches fire!’ This is very much as per Jim Collins’ ‘flywheel’ concept; consistent pushing in a single direction on the flywheel starts to make it turn, and slowly results appear. People then become motivated by the results and decide to join the effort, creating more force which in turn creates better results – and so the cycle goes on until the flywheel develops a momentum of its own.
Evolution not Revolution
An explained that Nike are on a journey; it’s evolution not revolution – but no worthwhile strategy can be planned without taking into account the organisations ability to execute it.
Execution must, therefore, be a core element of any organisations culture – is it a core element of yours?
Sean CuleyBusiness Transformation Expert (SCOR-P, FCILT)Sean Culey (SCOR-P, FCILT) is a global keynote speaker on the topic of disruptive technologies and their impact on businesses, the economy and society. He is the author of 'Transition Point', a detailed look at the causes of technological disruption and the impact it has had on our society, and how the current wave of technological change - from robotics to AI - will completely disrupt our business models, economy and society at large. Sean is also the author of numerous articles published in magazines such as Forbes, The World Financial Review and The European Business Review.
Sean is an expert at helping companies develop and deliver new customer centric business models, and he advises supply chain leaders on how to align their organisation to ensure they are executed successfully. He has 25 years of experience including six years as CEO of business consultancy ‘SEVEN’, and a decade working for Cadbury Schweppes, where he was the Global Design Authority on what was the world’s largest SAP implementation. He has developed a series of masterclasses about Disruptive Technologies and how companies can create new business models to exploit them.
Sean is also Visiting Fellow at Cranfield University and a Fellow at the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (FCILT). He is also the UK’s only certified SCOR Master Instructor and a futurist for IBM Watson.