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Steven Franklin

A VendorProvided Case Study

October 2025 - TD Magazine

For 49 seasons over more than seven years, FranklinCovey’s On Leadership podcast has featured in-depth conversations with top leadership thinkers

Off the Wire: On Leadership

 Whether you are a Mom-and-Pop operation or one of the larger talent development firms, you probably have some sort of strategy guiding you. Hopefully, this strategy has been documented and is the outgrowth of input from key people in the organization. But even if the strategy is only in your head, it is still waiting for action.Unfortunately, many strategic plans, which are key to the future of our businesses, are rarely executed fully—if at all. In the previous blog on strategic growth planning, I mentioned that some 80 percent of strategic plans fail to get executed. (I know I have read or heard this stat enough times to think it is true. But if truth be known, I don’t have a source to share with you to validate this alleged finding. Nonetheless, there is good reason to believe that most strategic plans are not fully executed as designed.)There are myriad reasons why this is the case, not the least of which are the normal changes to a business model or that leadership demands a different direction than originally proposed, deeming the original strategy moot. More importantly, in the ever-evolving talent development industry, one could even argue that sticking to a growth strategy could be counter-productive.  But what about strategic plans that are not subject to major interferences in the business model or competitive landscape? Why aren’t they  implemented? Execution Best PracticesA March 2015 Harvard Business Review article, “Why Strategy Execution Unravels—and What to Do About It,”  by Sull, Homkes, and Sull spells out several likely culprits, highlighting the myths many business leaders adhere to about strategy execution. Their research found that several practices actually get in the way of effective execution, including:inadequate alignment across business unitsundying commitment·one-way communicationstoo much of a performance cultureexecutive-only leadership.While the authors studied very large multinational organizations across many industries, these strategy execution lessons that apply to any organization.  Let’s take a closer look at each practice. Alignment:  To execute a strategic plan in a typical three- to five-year time span, senior leadership must be in total agreement about the direction the business is driving toward. Without this sort of alignment, major departments  and functions will continue to do their own “thing”—working at cross-purposes of the overall business.Interestingly, the research pointed out that while 40 percent of managers note alignment (or lack thereof) as the main cause of poor execution, the second major reason was failure to coordinate across units, noted by 30 percent of participants. Apparently, alignment alone doesn’t necessarily equate to execution—albeit it is a significant influencer.  So, while one of the primary goals of any strategic planning process is to achieve senior leader alignment, it also is important to align across all business units.Commitment: Most business leaders believe that alignment requires commitment to the strategic direction. But in my experience, alignment can exist (on the surface) without total commitment to the strategy. In this case, leaders agree with the overarching direction and some elements of the strategy, but not with all of it. In fact, unswervingly sticking to a strategic plan may impede its execution, given that many intervening factors and changes will surface over time. While commitment to the plan is initially necessary, ignoring the environmental changes taking place will undoubtedly result in leaders executing the wrong plan.Communications: The most likely reasons organizations fail to execute strategic plans:Leaders don’t provide communication to the rest of the business.Leaders provide communications that are unclear, foggy, and lack any inspiration for moving forward.Simply communicating the strategy from “on high” is too little to achieve a well-executed strategy. Instead, communications must create a dialogue that enables employees to offer input and questions so they can truly understand their role in the execution process. If a rational business case for the strategic direction isn’t offered to—and accepted at—the individual level, it will be difficult for employees to internalize the plan and their role in its execution.Performance Culture: Possessing a culture that is committed to performance is critical to execution. Organizations must establish a culture that recognizes and rewards practices like teamwork, experimentation, and flexibility, which may appear at times to slow down performance.  Although a high-performance culture values and demonstrates continual accountability, this head-down and all-hands-on-deck approach doesn’t allow organizations to slow down in the short term so they can move faster in the long term.  Indeed, the right delays—yielding the right results—should be perfectly acceptable.Executive Leadership: We often hear that true change must start at the top. But top-down involvement can impede the achievement of sustainable results. Certainly, the CEO and C-level team must lead the initial charge for execution, and even monitor its progress. However, the sooner frontline employees can internalize a strategy, the sooner they can rightfully execute it. Once the organization feels it must wait for executive approval, the process slows, engagement wanes, and innovation falters. In other words, it takes a village to effectively execute, not just a team of senior leaders who decide when and how execution should take place.Bottom LineThese execution practices are logical enough and, at some level, seem relatively simple to enact. Regrettably, they become more complicated in their actual operation. Perhaps, though, this is just the nature of most businesses that are growing—with growth comes frequent change and even alterations to the corporate strategic direction.Maintaining flexibility around strategy is a dual-edged sword, because sometimes flexibility can become an easy excuse for not following the original, well-thought out plan. Other times, flexibility makes complete sense and is, in fact,  necessary for the business to move forward. In either case, executing a strategic plan is a critical element of both the short- and long-term success of any business, including those in the talent development space. What’s more, minding these best practices can help any organization execute their strategy with success.How have you experienced poor to no execution of a strategic plan? Whether you were the leader or the follower, what were the reasons for this in your business? What were the real business consequences of the failed execution? How could the execution have been specifically improved? Share your experiences in the Comments below.  To learn more, check out my book The Complete Guide to Building and Growing a Talent Development Firm.

Growing Talent Management Firms: Strategy and Execution

The ATD research report Change Agents: The Role of Organizational Learning in Change Management states that seven in 10 leaders experienced at least one major organizational change in the past two years. Of that group, 60 percent saw three or more transformations, and 25 percent reported six or more. For most organizations, the new normal is constant change. This shift demands leaders take a more holistic approach to performance advancement.How do talent development leaders keep up with ever-changing business environments in ways that support evolving employee performance needs? The best leaders put in place an organization-wide, performance-based ecosystem that includes wide-ranging solutions from formal and informal content strategies. This might include assets ranging from personalized learning paths to just-in-time support for frontline managers, and all are generally supported by technology systems.At the ATD Forum 2018 Fall Lab held September 18-20 at BMO’s Institute for Learning in Toronto, 75 senior learning leaders from 33 companies and representing varied industries connected, collaborated, and shared cases. They focused on using the big-picture performance needs of employees to reimagine system-wide opportunities to support them using a variety of approaches and methods. The overarching aim of the Lab was to create an engaging and interactive environment for Forum members to learn from each other, to experiment with new approaches, and to build professional relationships.The defining attribute of a Lab is immersion in the culture, space, and work of the host member. This was unique at BMO because of its campus facility where all services are onsite: the learning center, meeting rooms, hotel rooms, social center, gym and swimming pool, all-inclusive dining, and even an English tea garden. In addition to the physical amenities, customer service was premier. Gina Jeneroux, CLO and keynote speaker, set the context for the experience by talking about how they are future-proofing the BMO workforce using upskilling, bold reskilling, and building a culture of continuous learning. BMO also provided a deep dive into their human performance continuum concept and model. This was supplemented with intimate discussions and behind-the-scenes insights on using e-books, video stories, and microlearning.A management consultant industry member shared some of their new science of learning research on “learning in the future” to advance more effective self-directed learning and how this builds on their motto of “Time away for learning and learning all of the time.” A manufacturing member provided insights for advancing employee learning using their learner-centric model focusing on experiences, exchanges with colleagues, and formal learning, following the 70-20-10 framework. This practice incorporates the Fuse technology.A member from the healthcare industry incorporates Dr. Clayton Christensen’s “work to be done” theory, and from this perspective the organization uses functional, social, and emotional dimensions to focus designing for the patient-experience, thus advancing the employee performance capability. A member in the retail industry shared their story of employing a three-pronged approach: AGILE, using action-mapping, and deploying a rapid development platform.Supplementing these case studies and practices was a pop-up activity by a government organization where small groups built a helicopter—while wearing blindfolds. From a facilitated processing of the experience, participants were able to understand and “see” how to implement Gottfredson and Mosher’s 5 Moments of Need for learning. The group provided ideas for addressing performance challenges with access to cascading levels of support delivered in a variety of ways.None of these opportunities happen in organizational transformations without technology to enable and support. Because the Forum is vendor-free, the Tech Roadshow provided the opportunity for users to discuss and demonstrate a variety of learning technologies to advance human performance, from LMSs to aggregators and integrators. Rather than a marketing pitch from vendors, this session featured experienced users providing information on why they selected the technology, how they are using it, the pros and cons of the functionality, and their lessons learned.William Duggan’s creative strategy approach via a treasure hunt process was used as the overall approach to tie all of this experience together. Starting with a card sort to crowdsource the most critical elements for advancing employee performance, participants used an Insight Matrix form to individually capture data from “what works scans” research as they heard about the various cases and practices. This approach is very different from many innovation practices. Instead of brainstorming untested ideas, this approach researches proven best practices for each of the specific elements identified. The individual data was analyzed, synthesized, and documented at the table level. The small groups then used creative association to design “big idea” solutions for volunteer clients based on combining examples or precedents from the various elements.At the end of the two-day Lab, participants had the following:Access to 12 workable big ideas for advancing employee performance, including the team that designed the solution.Connections with (and written bios for) 74 other senior talent leaders interested in advancing employee performance.Personal experience using the Duggan creative strategy process.Access to all of the documentation, including the instructions and deliverables from the session.If your organization is one of the 70 percent that have at least one major transformation a year, being able to engage in interactive experiences like Forum Labs might be just the ticket to help you enable your workforce to be future-ready. The ATD Forum’s next Lab, hosted by American Airlines, will focus on culture as a competitive advantage and will be held in Dallas, February 26-28, 2019. Join us for this opportunity to connect, collaborate, and share! Visit www.td.org/forum for more information.

Connecting, Collaborating, and Sharing at the ATD Forum Fall Lab

Monica Rembert is a wife, mother of four, full time graduate student, and a full time bedside nurse. She considers‘people as her passion and caregiving as both a blessing and an honor. She has been serving the Southwest Florida community for over seven years and is currently employed as a Staff Nurse and a charge nurse leader for the Surgical Progressive Care Unit (SPCU) at Lee Health.Monica Rembert is the current chair for the Clinical Practice Council (CPC), which is the system-wide nursing shared governance council. In her role, Monica represents and advocates for over 5000 Nurses at Lee Health. As the chair for this system council, Monica helps to share the voice of the bedside nurses with leadership, facilitates discussions that produce recommendations for change that either impact or effect frontline work, and helps to bring a sense of systemness to all nursing departments. Her vision for CPC is to see a fully functioning shared governance body where the people who do the work not only have a say in what happens, but they are empowered to speak up for safety and make recommendations for change when and where it is needed.Monica has also played a vital role in numerous safety, quality and process improvement projects. Her notable achievements include, rolling out Charge Nurse Leadership Program, creating an acuity tool for her department, producing the Clinical Circles publication, enhancing communication with senior leaders through hosting nursing-specific town halls and has been the bed-side voice for a number of initiatives across the system.

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