The conversion of strategic intentions into plans, actions and outcomes, falls to organizational leaders who find themselves pushed and pulled between running day-to-day operations, while at the same time changing them according to a strategic plan that promises future success. Alex Lowy’s latest article, “The Six Dilemmas Of Strategy Execution,” in the most recent issue of Strategy & Leadership (Vol. 43 No. 6, 2015)provides a roadmap for executives to consider and address these challenges.
Rather than being a sign that strategies are failing, or problematic, dilemmas are, in Lowy’s words “part and parcel of the strategy implementation process; they present consequential choices that need to be understood and addressed, and when they are, rewards and success are likely to follow.”