Consultants see a lot. Some time back in 2016, I worked with a bank whose strategy sounded perfect on paper. Five pillars. Fancy PowerPoints. Consultants paid.
Town halls held. But six months in, nothing had changed. Just busier people and louder meetings. Why? No data discipline. No execution muscle. Everyone had opinions. No one had facts.
Execution is not about shouting louder. It is about measuring tightly.
When I came in, I asked one question: “How do you know you are winning?”
Blank stares.
We started with the basics. Every objective got a scorecard. Every initiative got a weekly dashboard, not a monthly weekly. We built a war room with real-time data. Not just financials. But people’s data. Project data. Customer complaints.
“You will realise something: Risk management is cheaper than regret.”
Within 3 months, the fog lifted. The noise has reduced. Managers became uncomfortable. Why? Because now there was proof. And proof demands performance.
I tell leaders: if you cannot see it, you cannot fix it. Data builds discipline because it kills excuses.
You want to know who is performing? Check the trend, not the tone. You want to know which initiative is working? Follow the facts, not the favorites. You want to know if strategy is alive? Track execution every 7 days, not 90.
Leadership challenge:
Mr Strategy’s Data-Driven Execution Drill
a) Pick one top strategic initiative.
b) Define 3 clear weekly indicators of progress.
c) Assign a name to each indicator and review it every Friday without fail. No postponement. No stories. Just numbers.
That is how you build a culture where talk dies and results live. Because strategy without data is just a wish. Execution without data is a mess.
I recommend my Risk Cost Calculator
a) List your top three ignored risks.
b) Estimate the cost if they explode tomorrow – financial, reputational, operational.
c) Compare that to what it would cost to proactively manage them.
You will realize something: Risk management is cheaper than regret.
