Implementation Quotes

“No MBA wants to learn about execution. It’s not exciting.

Strategy is exciting. The Big Think is exciting.

But execution is far more important.”

William JohnsonChairman and CEO of H.J. Heinz

“The essence of strategy is choosing

what not to do.”

Michael Porter

“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But

in practice there is!”

Jan LA van

“Between the idea and the reality…

Between the conception and the creation…

Falls the shadow.”

TS Elliot

“To achieve goals you’ve never achieved before, you need to start

doing things you’ve never done before.”

Stephen Covey

“A business plan is only a piece of paper and even the greatest

business plan of all will prove worthless unless the people of a

company buy into it. It can not be sustainable or even implemented properly, unless the people are committed to it with the same

heart felt urgency as their leader.”

Howard Schultz

“In business, either you're an agent of change, or you're

destined to become a victim of change.”

Norm Brodsky

“Action is the fundamental key to all success.”

Pablo Picasso

“Never mistake motion for action.”

Earnest Hemingway

“To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your

thinking.”

Johann Goethe

“Without action, the world would still be an idea.”

INSEAD Library in France

“Strong reasons make strong actions.”

W. Shakespeare

“For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism.”

Steven WrightComedian

“An unpolished plan vigorously executed is more successful than an ideal plan implemented with less determination.  Better to

strike energetically, gain experience, learn what works and what does not, reassess the new situation, devise fresh plans and

take another step.  Spend too long preparing elaborate plans, and you will lose both time and initiative.”

Lee Hsien Loong Prime Minister of

Singapore

“The revival of the computer giant wasn’t due to vision, fixing IBM

was all about execution.”

Louis Grestner Former CEO of IBM

“Execution is the missing link between aspirations and results.”

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies

“Execution is the key to strategic success”

Lawrence HrebiniakWharton Professor

“The key difference between the worlds most admired companies

and others surveyed lies in execution.”

Hay Group Research2003

“You must create a culture of trust and commitment that motivates

people to implement the strategy, not to the letter but to the spirit.”

W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne

Blue Ocean Strategy

“To improve is to change and to be perfect is to change often.”

Sir Winston Churchill

“Many business visionaries have failed as leaders because they

could not execute.”

Howard Schultz

“Theory is splendid, but until put into practice it is valueless.”

James Cash Penny (1875-1971)

Founder of JC Penny

“Well done is better than well said.”

Benjamin Franklin

“For a new strategy to become a movement, people must not only

recognize what needs to be done, but they must act on the insight in a sustained and meaningful way.”

W. Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne Blue Ocean Strategy

“We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.”

Herb Kelleher

“Strategy is 10 per cent vision and 90 per cent execution.”

Percy BarnevikChairman of ABB

“Senior managers get lulled into believing that a well conceived strategy communicated to the

organization equals implementation.”

Michael Beer Harvard & Russell Eisenstat McKinsey

“My job is to speak. Your job is to listen. Let's hope we finish our

jobs at the same time.”

Adlai Stevenson

“Some where in your organization, groups of people are already doing things differently and

better. To create lasting change, find these areas of positive deviance

and fan the flames.”Richard Pascale & Jerry Sternin “Your Company’s Secret Change

Agents” HBR

“Nothing happens without personal transformation.”

W.E. Deming

“Ideas are a commodity. Execution of them is not.”

Michael Dell

“The most fundamental part of organizational success is creating a strategy and then running every decision through the prism of that

plan.”

President Obama

“Execution—getting the task done, making it happen—is the most

unappreciated skill of an effective business leader.”

Louis V. Gerstner

“Any damn fool can write a plan. It’s the execution that gets you all

screwed up.”

Charles S. Noble (1999)

“Strategies are intellectually simple;

their execution is not.”Lawrence A. Bossidy former CEO Allied-Signal

“All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their

mistakes.” Sir Winston Churchill 

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan

executed next week.”

George S. Patton

“No plan survives the first two minutes of battle.”

Helmuth Von Moltke Chief of the Imperial German General

Staff, 1858-88

“Great execution beats great strategy 99% of the time. (Make

that 100% of the time)”

Tom Peters

“An outstanding strategy weakly executed will always be trumped

by a weak strategy with outstanding execution.”

Bob Legge

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at

the results.”

Sir Winston Churchill

“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others

make it happen.”

Michael Jordan

“Companies that out-execute their competitors have communicated

crystal-clear messages to all their employees.”

Louis V. Gerstner

“At the end of the day, strategy is about the actions you take.

Therefore, one of the highest priorities of a top-management

strategy forum is to ensure disciplined implementation of key

strategic initiatives.”

Mckinsey

“A leader who says , ‘I’ve got ten priorities’ don’t know himself what he is talking about – he

doesn't know himself what the most important things are…

Leaders who execute well focus on a few clear priorities that everyone

can grasp. You’ve got to have these few clearly realistic goals

and priorities which will influence the overall performance of the

company.”

Larry Bossidy, former CEO of Honeywell

“Executing strategy is a job for a company’s whole management team, not just for a few senior

managers. "The CEO and the major unit heads are ultimately

responsible for ensuring the strategy is successfully executed. However the execution process affects every part of the firm. ”

Thompson, Strickland and Gamble

“It’s not so much the uniqueness of your strategy that mattes

nowadays – it's the strength of your execution.”

 Peter Loscher President & CEO of Siemens

“One does not plan and then try to make circumstances fit those

plans. One tries to make plans for the circumstances.”

 George S. Patton Jr.

“I always found that plans are useless, but planning is

indispensable.”

 Dwight D. Eisenhower

“A perfect strategy today will not be perfect tomorrow as conditions

change.”

Robin Speculand

“Short term implementation is incremental. Long term in

transformational.”

Robin Speculand

“Every strategy is marked with a plan and a destination. Don't lose

sight of the destination.”

 

Robin Speculand

 

“Strategy without implementation is not worth the paper its written

on.”

Robin Speculand

“Strategy is about making the tough choices. Implementation is about taking the right actions.”

Robin Speculand

“Nine out of 10 companies fail to execute their strategy. To be competitive you must excel at

execution.”

  Robin Speculand