Author: Tim Ohai

Welcome our guest thought leader: Tim Ohai is a leading growth consultant. He is the Founder and Principal of Kupu Solutions, and previously served as Global Director of Sales Effectiveness for Workday and other sales enablement roles at Shell Oil and Pennzoil. Connect with him and follow his wisdom here. And catch his latest podcast season of How to NOT Execute Your Strategy (and what to do about it) for more.

It can be a very dark moment when you realize — after reviewing every aspect of your execution — that your own company culture is blocking your revenue strategy.

Well, culture eats strategy for breakfast, right?

So, how does one actually change culture? Even more daunting, how does one change a culture that she/he/they did not create?

I wish I had three simple rules that you could sprinkle like magic dust to fix your culture overnight.

I don’t.

However, I do have three concepts that you can apply — over and over again — that will eventually bend your company culture toward improved execution. It’s not a fast process, but it works.  Let’s get to them.

1) THE LEADERS OF COMPANY CULTURE

First, we should all recognize that the primary stewards of company culture are its leaders. Therefore, let’s begin by redefining what leadership is about.

To be a culture of execution, remember that being “strategic” is not about having a plan and driving everything against that plan. Great plan-making and project management skills are not the same as being strategic. That is 1900s thinking at best. Rather, because we live in a complex, agile, constantly evolving Information Age, leaders must be appointed for their ability to create an environment of great decision-making. They must be promoted for this. They must be recruited for this. And they must be held accountable for this.

Changing, and especially rewarding, the definition of leadership in this way will guarantee that the culture will shift to better execution.

Side note: If you want to get really good at this, categorize leaders who can (a) spur great decision-making that optimizes the business (thus minimizing disruption) and (b) spur great decision-making that transforms the business (thus creating disruption). This is critical when your revenue strategy is a shift from the previous motion. A revenue strategy that transforms how everyone works will need leaders who are comfortable generating disruption and have the skill to navigate it successfully. Conversely, when the last revenue strategy was transformative (i.e. disruptive), leaders who can optimize and stabilize everything become essential so that the previous change truly becomes the new “normal.”

2) THE VALUES THAT NEED TO ALIGN

The second concept that will help change company culture is this: vigorously identify competing values. For example, when the official values of the company say some version of “be excellent” and also say “be nice,” leadership will need to expose when one value is beating down another. In this scenario, “excellence” might overrun the nice people in the company. Conversely, “niceness” can become a poison that saps the energy from excellence because conflict is avoided and unhealthy issues are allowed to fester and stagnate in silence. It’s okay to have values that create tension with each other. They key is to keep them in balance, not conflict.

Side note: If you want to get really good at this, empower everyone to be able to call out issues. Surfacing competing values should be something the entire organization is passionate about. But make sure that there are clean boundaries for how this is done and tell people to develop some thick skin. Collaboration — the robust, genuine kind — is messy. Water will get in the canoe while everyone paddles. This is healthy — and acceptable.

3) THE EFFECT OF STRESS

The third concept that will shape your culture is based off of this principle: stress changes how decisions are made. Therefore, we cannot change the culture if we don’t address stress and its impact on decision-making.

This is the deepest and most profound concept on this list and, frankly, it’s the foundation of my work as an executive coach. So, while I could create another series of articles on this topic alone, let me point out two aspects of this principle you can use immediately.

First, failure is an option if we are learning from it. When the same mistake is made over and over again, or when the same barrier is put up over and over again, the issue at hand is not about learning from mistakes. It is something else (including competing values). But if we teach people to avoid failure, they will ultimately bog down our culture with fear, which will only feed our sensitivity to stress over time. Make failure an intentional learning strategy and watch how stress will decrease.

Second, stress is not fixed by avoiding pressure. Our ability to handle stress is like a muscle that can be strengthened to handle increased difficulty. Or better said, to not be affected by difficulty. We need to teach our teams how to handle difficulty without reverting to the fear-based parts of our brains. But ask yourself this: what percentage of the company has been trained on this? I would propose that the percentage of people not trained to handle stress equates to the percentage of people not executing well — or even worse.

Now pause. Take a breath. That was a lot of information to absorb — especially if you are trying to evaluate your company, your leaders, and yourself against each concept as you read. It’s perfectly acceptable to go back and re-read the content above before you continue.

SHARE THE VALUE

Are you ready for one final twist? I’d like to show you how to tailor your value proposition for your customers. The good thing is that it is a relatively easy idea to lay out.

Tailor your value proposition to how it helps your customer execute their strategy.

In other words:

• Can you position your value as someone / something that will help create clarity?
• Can you position your value as someone / something that will improve empowerment?
• Can you position your value as someone / something that will generate engagement?
• Can you position your value as someone / something that will support accountability?
• Can you position your value as someone / something that will positively integrate with their culture?

We should already be asking about the strategic objectives of our customers. This approach adds in the element of advising them on how those objectives will be delivered. Or more importantly, how your value can help them make better decisions.

As I said, it’s not a hard idea to understand. But you cannot offer the value of helping them execute better unless you have walked the same path.

I mua. Onward and upward.

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DID YOU MISS THE PREVIOUS ARTICLES?

EXPLORE THE WHOLE REVENUE STRATEGY SERIES:

• Part I: The Problems Holding Back Your Revenue Strategy
• Part II: Decision-Making & Clarity in Your Revenue Strategy 
• Part III: Empowerment & Motivation in Your Revenue Strategy
• Part IV: Leadership & Accountability in Your Revenue Strategy

Welcome our guest thought leader: Tim Ohai is a leading growth consultant. He is the Founder and Principal of Kupu Solutions, and previously served as Global Director of Sales Effectiveness for Workday and other sales enablement roles at Shell Oil and Pennzoil. Connect with him and follow his wisdom here. And catch his latest podcast season of How to NOT Execute Your Strategy (and what to do about it) for more.

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What is the deciding factor between two competing strategies? Which strategy will execute better and ultimately win?

For the most basic of scenarios, the team with the greater clarity wins.

When clarity is equal, the team that is more empowered wins.

And when each side has been equally empowered, the more engaged team will win.

But what happens when everything is equal? Are both sides doomed to stalemate?

I believe that strategic execution boils down to two more things. Two incredibly complex things.

ACCOUNTABILITY’S ROLE IN THE REVENUE STRATEGY

First, accountability. When there is a lack of accountability, the revenue strategy cracks. It doesn’t matter how strong the revenue strategy is, accountability undermines every single dependency and weakens how they function.

Without accountability:

• Brand Marketing can’t get Field Marketing to align.
• Field Marketing can’t get Field Sales to adopt.
• Field Sales can’t get Sales Operations to support.
• Sales Operations can’t get IT to change.

And so forth.

Accountability is literally the glue of the strategy.

To the Type A personalities amongst us, it would seem like accountability should be tackled full on. But here is the rub.

Accountability — the healthy kind — is built on trust. And the protests and demands of Type A revenue executives will not create trust.

Trust is established through a combination of transparency without negative consequence. People need to be told (and be comfortable telling) when agreed upon expectations aren’t being met. The expectation must be reinforced over and over again, until they either leave, figure it out or ask for help to meet the expectation. Building trust cannot be forced. And if that kind of approach won’t work in your organization, you can only choose one of two paths:

• Path 1: Scale the revenue strategy back to the level of accountability that does work
• Path 2: Address the greatest obstacle to execution: your culture

CULTURE’S ROLE IN THE REVENUE STRATEGY

Culture is the very bedrock of execution. All decisions — from executive leadership to the playing field — extend from your culture.

What is culture exactly? Investopedia defines culture as, “The values, beliefs, and behaviors that determine how a company’s employees and management interact, perform, and handle business.”

I would offer a different (though complementary) definition. Culture is the culmination of the values and beliefs that make things feel “right” for the local team.

In other words, the cultures of our organizations are linked to how “right” everything feels. And that feeling is as subjective as the group we are part of. What feels “right” to Finance may or may not feel “right” to Sales. What feels “right” in the U.S. may not feel “right” in Japan. And so on.

Can you see how a feeling of rightness can either galvanize or destroy your revenue strategy? I believe this is why Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

When culture is healthy, people can anchor their decisions to execute a strategy that feels right. As a result, they unleash an unlimited capacity for effectiveness. They use their collective sense of rightness to invite accountability. To create engagement. To drive empowerment. To generate clarity.

When culture is unhealthy, the accountability, engagement, empowerment and clarity needed are at best limited.

Pause.

How is your culture affecting the execution of your revenue strategy? Can you see where things are working — and where they are not? Can you see how decisions are being made that reflect the culture? More importantly, what can you do about it?

LET’S RECAP

I promised at the very beginning of this series to help you do three things:

1. Diagnose and pinpoint where your own execution is breaking down.
2. Generate quick successes to unblock your execution.
3. Tailor your value proposition for your customers based on what will help them most.

As we close this article, please allow me to reinforce points 1 and 2.

To drive greater execution of your revenue strategy, pinpoint the breakdowns. Start with inspecting the five factors:

1. Clarity: Are the goals AND roles clear, aligned and prioritized?
2. Empowerment: Does everyone have the people, time, energy and resources they need to fully execute (and not just launch the plan)?
3. Engagement: Is de-motivation keeping the team’s full capacity from being released?
4. Accountability: Is trust genuinely in place and transparency not being limited?
5. Culture: Is everyone’s sense of “rightness” healthy and aligned around both what the revenue strategy is meant to achieve AND how decisions will be made to execute?

You may find that there are gaps in every component above. That is normal. The key is now deciding where to generate quick wins to unblock your execution.

As previously discussed, start at clarity and work down the list. If improving goal and role clarity gets execution back on track, well done. That should be enough for now. If improving clarity did not unblock execution, address empowerment. Repeat the process until you have done everything can to start delivering the intended results.

LOOK AHEAD TO INFLUENCING POSITIVE CHANGE

In my next and final article, I will get into how to actually address culture in way that changes it. I will also link everything back to how you tailor your value proposition for your customers.

But let me leave you with a very important reminder: be kind to yourself.

Fixing how the organization executes the revenue strategy is hard work. If the obstacles are not easy to address, give them time — and keep working at it. If you discover that your leadership is the source of the problem, simply acknowledge it and do what needs to be done now that you have greater insight. And if you discover that the organization has gaps that cannot be fixed, know that this is also normal. You are not alone.

Influence what you can … and trust the journey.

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EXPLORE THE WHOLE REVENUE STRATEGY SERIES:

• Part I: The Problems Holding Back Your Revenue Strategy
• Part II: Decision-Making & Clarity in Your Revenue Strategy 
• Part III: Empowerment & Motivation in Your Revenue Strategy
  
• Part V: Company Culture & Your Revenue Strategy

Welcome our guest thought leader: Tim Ohai is a leading growth consultant. He is the Founder and Principal of Kupu Solutions, and previously served as Global Director of Sales Effectiveness for Workday and other sales enablement roles at Shell Oil and Pennzoil. Connect with him and follow his wisdom here. And catch his latest podcast season of How to NOT Execute Your Strategy (and what to do about it) for more.

Napoleon Hill famously said, “Plan your work and work your plan.”

To be fair, the concept is likely older than Mr. Hill. It is considered timeless advice for the power of hard work and extra effort.

However, the problem with executing our revenue strategy (as we covered in the last article) is not the plan. The real problem is the many obstacles that get in the way of making great decisions.

Therefore, when execution is bogging down in real-time, every leader needs to start there — at the obstacles to decision-making.

Assuming the first obstacle to great decision-making (a lack of clarity) has been properly addressed, the second obstacle to focus on is a lack of empowerment.

Think about it. We can make everything abundantly clear. Everyone can nod “yes” when asked if they understand the strategy, plus their prioritized goals and roles to achieve it. There can even be zero questions when we ask for them.

But then the strategy STILL struggles to execute.

Adoption from the salesforce stalls. Support from key stakeholders shuts down. Revenue numbers start being missed.

What is happening? Is this a case of people not working hard enough to execute the plan? Most likely, the answer is no — even though it is one of the most common answers I hear from leaders who aren’t seeing the strategy being executed well enough. That is when I press in to explore the lack of empowerment.

“Has everyone been given exactly what they need to be successful? More specifically, have they been given the people they need, the time they need, the energy they need and the resources they need?”

This is when it can get a little uncomfortable, because — more often than not — the leader has only provided a plan with time and target goals fully fleshed out.

EMPOWERMENT IS ABOUT MUCH MORE THAN PROVIDING CLEAR EXPECTATIONS

To execute the strategy, everyone needs to be empowered with the following:

• People: This means we have enough of the right people with the right skills. Launching a strategy without being fully staffed is foolish. Of equal importance, launching a strategy without being fully skilled is also foolish.
• Time: This means we have enough time to not only get things done but to turn progress into momentum. Strategic plans that end with a launch date — and no timeline for reinforcement / adjustment / adoption — are doomed to unwanted chaos as well.
• Energy: This means we have enough mental and emotional capacity to make good decisions and execute — that we are not wrestling with confusion, fatigue, resistance and such. Energy also includes the full emotional support of leadership for the players on the field. Leaders must be empathetic to the players, not critical of them.
• Resources: This means we have the right budget, equipment / technology and even the physical space to get the job done. When strategic plans assume the initial resource estimates are 100% correct (and do not keep something extra in reserve for use later to drive reinforcement / adjustment / adoption), success is guaranteed to be limited.

Now, if we have provided both clarity and empowerment and execution is still stuck in a slog, we can tackle the third obstacle to executing our revenue strategy: engagement.

In the simplest of terms, engagement describes the state where an organization’s people buy into / believe that what they are doing is good for the organization AND good for them personally. An engaged workforce hums with self-motivation.

If engagement is missing — even if we have injected clarity and empowerment — we get apathy. Nothing really matters. And while there may be a flurry of action on the surface (meetings, emails, projects, etc.), none of it actually goes anywhere because the decisions being made are not tapping into the full capacity of the players making decisions. And the lack of engagement ruins execution.

DON’T LET DE-MOVATION KEEP YOUR TEAM FROM BEING ENGAGED

Let’s assume for a moment that people are generally motivated to do meaningful work. This desire can become blocked by de-motivation — a state where internal motivation is buried beneath layers of restriction. The most common restrictions I see are:

• Isolation: A sense (real or imagined) of being separated from all support
• Information overload: Becoming overwhelmed by too much communication and data
• Task difficulty: Struggling to do something that is currently beyond personal ability
• Unrealistic expectations: Being held accountable to do something that cannot be achieved realistically

As leaders, we cannot motivate our players. Motivation comes from within. However, we can seek and address the factors that are de-motivating our players — especially when we might be the actual cause of the factor(s) involved.

This is not to say that it is easy work. Engagement is a complex and highly organic concept. There are many factors that generate it. But when we put our efforts into minimizing (and even eliminating) de-motivation, we create an environment where motivation can flourish and engagement can surge.

TAKE THE RIGHT STEPS TO SUCCESSFULLY EXECUTE YOUR REVENUE STRATEGY

Please allow me to offer one further piece of advice: Go in order.

If the revenue strategy is struggling to execute …

1. Start with creating clarity. Make sure that goals and roles are clear, aligned, and prioritized.
2. Then, address empowerment. Everyone should have the people, time, energy and resources they need to fully execute — not just launch — the plan.
3. If execution is still struggling after clarity and empowerment have been assured, dig into engagement. Seek and address de-motivation to release the team’s full capacity.

The good news is that execution can be corrected using these principles. The even better news is that we can embed these principles into our execution from the very beginning.

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EXPLORE THE WHOLE REVENUE STRATEGY SERIES:

• Part I: The Problems Holding Back Your Revenue Strategy
• Part II: Decision-Making & Clarity in Your Revenue Strategy 
  
• Part IV: Leadership & Accountability in Your Revenue Strategy
• Part V: Company Culture & Your Revenue Strategy

Welcome our guest thought leader: Tim Ohai is a leading growth consultant. He is the Founder and Principal of Kupu Solutions, and previously served as Global Director of Sales Effectiveness for Workday and other sales enablement roles at Shell Oil and Pennzoil. Connect with him and follow his wisdom here. And catch his latest podcast season of How to NOT Execute Your Strategy (and what to do about it) for more.

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The goal is simple: execute the revenue strategy.

Well, as the old adage says, it is easier said than done.

As leaders, we do everything we can to make sure that the strategy is clear. We do everything we can to make sure that strategy is understood. And we do everything that we can to make sure that strategy is launched successfully.

But once the revenue strategy launches, why is execution such a roll of the dice?

Allow me to let you in on a poorly-known secret … execution has nothing to do with the plan.

Do plans matter? Absolutely. As Benjamin Franklin said long ago, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.”

But as I described in my previous post, the execution of our revenue strategies rely on too many variables than any single plan can account for. There is no way for one plan to cover every stakeholder, every dependency, every obstacle, and every change that will be involved as the revenue strategy implements over time. Factor in the idea that our customers have their own strategies to implement — with their own stakeholders / dependencies / obstacles / changes — and we wind up with an incredibly complex scenario that plans cannot manage.

WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE STRATEGIC PLAN?

Decision-making holds greater weight over your strategic plan. More specifically, making decisions in the moment as the strategy is being executed will influence your ultimate success.

If you know Henry Mintzberg, you know that strategy is ultimately a decision-making discipline. More succinctly, the decisions that are made in the pursuit of a targeted outcome is the real strategy. Therefore, strategic execution is the discipline of setting up and enabling great decision-making, the discipline of eliminating the triggers for poor decision-making.

So, what is the most common trigger for poor decision-making (and thus poor execution)? A lack of clarity.

As you have likely experienced yourself, a lack of clarity can show up in many ways. No clear goals, no clear priorities, no clear roles. Or as more commonly experienced, competing goals, competing priorities, and competing roles. Then there are components like processes, systems, and old-fashioned interpersonal dynamics that produce chaos. It’s no wonder poor decision-making occurs. All of these factors, left unchecked, become a breeding ground for poor decision-making — and poor execution.

INSTILL CLARITY FROM THE START

The good news is that a lack of clarity is a relatively easy problem to address. Start with establishing goal clarity. What does success look like? I recommend defining the goal with the following three parts:

1. The targeted outcome(s): What is the specific objective that the strategy is asking for? There may be more than one objective, but be cautious with adding too many targets to hit.
2. The metrics that will be used: How will we know if the outcome has successfully been achieved? This should be a solid combination of both leading and lagging indicators. And again be cautious using too many metrics.(Side note: Far too often, metrics are confused with the outcome. The goal of “10% revenue growth” is a metric, not an outcome. Define the outcome — like launching a new product line — so that revenue growth measures how well the launch did.)
3. The requirements that must be included/addressed: What expectations must be met in the pursuit of the outcome? This can include timelines, stakeholders to involve, budget concerns, etc. The caution here is to make sure it is all on the table up front so that people are not blindsided by unexpected expectations.

The key is to get everyone on the same page for all three of these parts. In other words, everyone involved should be pursuing the same outcome(s), using the same metrics, and meeting the same requirements. Do this and the resulting clarity will “magically” clean up so much of the poor decision-making that is generating poor execution. Prioritization and role clarity can be addressed. Resources (like budget and staff) get appropriately assigned. Processes naturally align. And interpersonal clashes organically go away.

PUT YOUR STRATEGY TO THE TEST

Pause.

Do you want to test the clarity of your revenue strategy? Ask your stakeholders to define what success looks like for your revenue strategy. Do they give you an aligned definition of outcome(s), metrics and requirements? If yes, celebrate because you are ahead of the rest of your peers. You can eagerly look forward to the next article in this series.

If not, this is exactly where you need to begin. While you’re at it, consider giving the Mereo Solution Management Expert Workbook a read.

DOWNLOAD NOW

AN EXTRA BONUS: PAYING IT FORWARD

It’s likely that the majority of your customers need some sort of help in creating their own clarity. When you and your sales team talk with them, you can generate credibility and trust by helping them get clear on what their own success looks like. Ask them questions like:

• Do they have an aligned definition of outcome(s), metrics and requirements?
• Would they like help in getting that?
• Can you introduce them to some of your other customers who are dealing with the same challenges?
• Would they find value if you shared how you and your company helped others create clarity?
• The conversation can be incredibly empowering for everyone involved. And it is far more relevant than talking about features and benefits.

With that said, I offer one final caution: Be careful trying to create clarity with customers if you and your team have not already done your own work in this area. In other words, if we cannot do this for ourselves, how can we expect to do this with our customers?

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EXPLORE THE WHOLE REVENUE STRATEGY SERIES:

• Part I: The Problems Holding Back Your Revenue Strategy
  
• Part III: Empowerment & Motivation in Your Revenue Strategy
• Part IV: Leadership & Accountability in Your Revenue Strategy
• Part V: Company Culture & Your Revenue Strategy

Welcome our guest thought leader: Tim Ohai is a leading growth consultant. He is the Founder and Principal of Kupu Solutions, having previously served as Global Director of Sales Effectiveness for Workday and other sales enablement roles at Shell Oil and Pennzoil. Connect with him here.

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In conversation after conversation with senior revenue leaders, I keep hearing the same thing: “I’m not sure my team is executing our strategy.”

Now, factor in the research that Robert Kaplan and David Norton published in 2005: “… On average, 95% of a company’s employees are unaware of, or do not understand, its strategy.”

Is it possible, even 15+ years later, the 95% benchmark has not changed?

Based on what I am seeing and hearing, the answer is depressing. And it’s affecting the lifeblood of any revenue leader’s business.

Marketing campaigns fail to deliver against their promises. Sales initiatives stumble to even launch properly. And, per Dr. Howard Dover of the University of Texas, the massive amounts of technology spend over the last few years have not improved the effectiveness of our sellers. The revenue strategy is not coming to life.

It’s just as frustrating on the buyer’s side of the table. Remember, 95% of those people are also struggling to understand their own business strategy. They have their own failed initiatives, technology waste, and a surge of quiet quitting that is affecting every decision-making experience.

I would go so far as to propose that a major reason that 40% of deals end in no decision (Challenger, Inc.) is rooted in a lack of understanding the company strategy.

Read that last sentence again.

I see a fundamental lack of strategic understanding that is causing almost half of all qualified sales cycles to end with literally no decision being made. People are making decisions — or not making decisions — that do not align with the strategic outcomes of the organization. Somehow, they have either created their own definitions of what the strategy is, or they have bogged down all decision-making with their lack of clarity and confusion. Mix these two dynamics together (especially in complex sales cycles) and the end result is simply chaotic.

Furthermore, if we add in the potential deals that never get qualified and the deals with the customer regretting their final choice … well, the 40% number of lost opportunities starts to look small.

WHAT IS A REVENUE LEADER SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT THIS?

In the next four posts, I am going to walk through a model that challenges the entire mindset about how we both execute our revenue strategies and help our customers navigate their own complexity. This model will help you, as a revenue leader:

1. Diagnose and pinpoint where your own execution is breaking down.
2. Generate quick successes to unblock your execution.
3. Tailor your value proposition for your customers based on what will help them most.

And if you and your team can do that, imagine how much of that 40% benchmark will shrink.

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