Handling “people problem” in strategy execution

Over the weekend, a friend of mine, who has an executive sales role in a multinational, complained about the organization’s reluctance to execute the strategy. It was a big problem for him.

It reminded me of a post from Jonathan Stark that I shared with him, where he says:

“Ultimately, every problem is a people problem.

Why?

Because the very notion of “a problem” is a construct of the human mind.

No people, no problems.”

He confirmed that it all boils down to people executing a good strategy. Otherwise, the strategy would remain wishful thinking. And he asked:

But what to do with people (sometimes for good reasons) who resist adapting and put the entire strategy at risk?

I prosed him three perspectives that I learned from my coaching experience:

1- This person is a problem

2- This person has a problem

3- This person is on a learning journey and full of potential.

He immediately said I should not expect him to go for the third one for the whole organization. I asked why not. He said it would take a lot of time and energy, which they don’t have at that moment.

From my point of view, that is precisely the main reason why companies lose immense energy during their strategy executions. They are mainly ready to allocate a big amount of resources to build their strategy. Yet, unless they choose the third option, they feel unable to translate their strategy into the daily language of the people who execute it. 

And ironically, like my friend, they eliminate the third one to “save” time and energy.