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Big ideas are impressive. How they’re implemented makes a world of difference.
“A man’s accomplishments in life are the cumulative effect of his attention to detail.”
— John Foster Dulles, 1953
Management guru Peter Drucker1 is often credited with the phrase “Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.” While there is no evidence of this exact phrase in his works, it was the guiding principle behind his life’s philosophy.
This is not to say that a vision or strategy is without merit; quite the contrary. If the gods of the C-suite are forming the body of a new being, strategy is the skeleton that forms the inner structure, while execution takes the shape of muscle, sinew, and skin to give refinement and responsiveness to the changing world.
Napoleon knew as much when …
