Quality and process improvement programs are like teaching people how to fish. Strategy maps and scorecards teach people where to fish.

Corporate strategy can guide acquisitions, divestitures, and market and product development efforts outside the scope of individual business units. But the importance of corporate strategy is often overrated…That's because operational excellence at the business-unit level is fundamental to our prescription for success.

Innovation isn't the key to economic growth. Management is the key to economic growth. Companies that rely too heavily on creativity flame out. In many ways, execution is more important.

There is value in careful planning and thoughtful preparation. However, until there is execution, no plan is flawed; no preparation inadequate. Execution spotlights all. Cultures can get enamored with the preliminaries since there are no consequences.

Related to execution is integration. People gain knowledge in buckets. For example, if you're a marketing person, the whole world becomes a marketing problem. Because of this, we need more integration. We need someone with a perspective, someone who understands various functions and parts of the company. The ability to integrate is essential to execution, and managers who can do this are very tough to find.

This implementation problem is common in many fields. Studying the history of art, for example, does not teach you how to create great art: It just helps you appreciate why it's great. Your studies may heighten your perception and stoke your enthusiasm to emulate the work of the masters, but you are still a long way from producing a great work. Similarly, the analysis of strategy allows you to appreciate why some strategies are innovative, but it doesn't teach you how to create them. Those skills, like those of great artists, are synthetic, not analytical. They cannot be taught conceptually - they have to be learned through well-structured experience.

A large number of execution problems are really direction problems.

Consistent alignment of capabilities and internal processes with the customer value proposition is the core of any strategy execution.

The trouble is there are too many companies that basically believe in socialism. They give stock options to everybody, give pay increases that are the same to everybody within the same salary scale. If you don't differentiate, you can't possibly be an execution company! And if you don't single out for reward the people who get things done for you, then you won't keep the people who will ultimately run the company successfully.

Good is the enemy of great. That's why so few things become great.

Strategy gets you on the playing field, but execution pays the bills.