Strategy & execution are like the two words – thought and action.  The issue is which comes first.  Thought or action.  We have people around the world, who believe that action leads to thought.  On the other hand, purists believe that thought has to precede action.  We need to plan first before we go for execution. It is like in the photo above, any amount of study of wind direction and planning to play the frisbee on the sea shore is of no use unless you try it and learn by your failures and successes.

It is similar to the debate on Theory versus practise.     After having worked in industry for more than three decades, my learning is that both are equally important and they complement each other.  You need to have a plan to execute it.  However, on the other hand, if we spend our entire life planning of a dream future, it may remain a dream in our life.  Hence, execution is as important as planning itself.

Let us look back at every stage of our life.  As a child, we are trained to dream big.  Aim for the moon we are told.  However, if we aim for the moon and do not work hard to achieve our mission, we may reach nowhere.  Whether it academic or sports, we have to have a dream and then we need to evolve milestones to realise our dream. No plan leads to action until executed with discipline.

The work life is no different.  We all are ambitious and want to become the CEO within years of our starting our career in an organization.  There is nothing wrong in having such aspirations.  However, we need to have a plan, work towards executing that plan through hard work and discipline.  As we progress, we may face obstacles.  This should not deter us from proceeding with our plan execution with necessary changes and perseverance.  However, if we give up mid way, we can neither blame the plan, nor our exection for our failure.

Life is no different.  We all have a dream.  We may be born in lower middle class families.  But, we want to conquer the world in our own sphere.  Its great to have such dream.  It would be wise to plan meticulously to realise this vision of ours.  After visioning, we need to put our neck out and experiment.  We need to take the risk associated with our actions and be willing to learn from our failures.  No wonder they say failures are the stepping stones to success.

Most of the time, we neither plan nor we are willing to try.  We give up even before we begin.  Let us take a simple example from our lives, which happens to most of us every year.  We make grandiose new year resolutions.  We want to be fit and healthy.  We resolve that we will walk or jog for ten kilometres every day before the dawn of the new year on the 31st of December, while we are still rejoicing welcoming the new year.

The very next day we do not get up and postpone our plan for the next day and then the next week and may be the next month.  This way it never happens and the next year arrives before we realise it.  Now, in this scenario, can we blame the plan or the execution.  We need to blame ourselves as we neither were serious in planning or in implementing what we planned.  

I recently met an Olympics bronze medalist in swimming.  She told us that she practises for ten kilometres of swimming every day.  She does this for four years before the next Olympics and thus plans for winning a medal.  We need to plan to walk for at least one kilometre every day before we dream of being fit.   This teaches that meticulous planning and relentless execution is the key to success.

Let us start today.

S Ramesh Shankar
January 2017