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Strategy First, Execution Second
101 Plays4 months ago
Welcome back to The CEO's Wing Woman® podcast! In this episode, Olivia Jenkins delves into one of her favourite topics: the critical balance between strategy and execution. Discover why only 10% of businesses succeed at mastering both and learn the five key principles to ensure your business joins this elite group. Olivia explains the importance of investing time in crafting a solid strategy and offers practical advice on when to shift gears to execution. Tune in to understand how to use discernment to find the right balance, avoid common pitfalls, and maximise your business success.
Key Takeaways:
- The significance of prioritising strategy before diving into execution.
- Understanding the common pitfalls of focusing solely on strategy or execution.
- The concept of discernment in balancing strategy and execution.
- Practical examples illustrating the importance of this balance.
- How mastering both strategy and execution can place your business in the top 10%.
Connect with Olivia:
- Instagram: @oliviajenkins.co
- Website: www.oliviajenkins.com
Subscribe and Share: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast and share it with fellow visionary CEOs who could benefit from these insights. Your support is greatly appreciated!
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Transcript
Introduction and Olivia's Experience
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the See You's Wingwoman Podcast.
00:00:05
Speaker
I'm Olivia Jenkins, your host and virtual coach, helping you scale your brand to cult-like status. Since 2019, I've helped over 100 clients generate in excess of 45 million in revenue. And now it's time for me to share my tips, tricks and strategies to help you supercharge your growth. I'm here to help you step into your power to develop a bulletproof strategy and growth mindset to match. Consider me your secret weapon to scale. Let's get started.
Strategy First, Execution Second
00:00:36
Speaker
Welcome back to the CEO's Wingwoman Podcast. I'm your host, Olivia Jenkins, and today we are talking about a very important topic. In fact, one of my favorite topics, and that is the idea of strategy first, execution second. Now, this is something that we talk about constantly in-house at OJC and with our clients, but What I am teaching you today, this concept that I'm taking you through, is all about investing the time upfront in strategy so that you can reap the rewards when it comes to execution. And there's one major reason why this is so important in the context of business. And in fact, it's something that only 10% of business owners succeed at, and that is
00:01:21
Speaker
the idea of nailing both strategy and execution. You'd be surprised, but about 90% of businesses will win at either strategy or execution, but only 10% will be able to do both. And what we're going to talk about today and what we'll unpack together is the five main things that you need to know about strategy first, execution second, so that you can become part of the winning 10%.
The Pitfalls of Over-Strategizing
00:01:48
Speaker
So let's unpack. these five key reasons together, and let's go through them one by one so I can explain to you what each one of these key steps mean, but also how you can bring this to life in your business for best results. So the first idea, and we'll start with strategy first, because everything begins with strategy, and when you're putting together any type of strategy, you need to understand where you're aiming to end up. So if we think about strategy first, if you're only ever focused on strategy,
00:02:20
Speaker
you're never actually putting anything into action, are you? So you spend all of your time developing the strategy for your business, but if you don't actually ever get to the implementation part, if you're not actually executing anything, then it's virtually impossible to get results because you've spent all the time in the strategy, all the time in developing the game plan, but you haven't actually done anything, you haven't actually implemented. And this is very common, particularly when people are thinking about starting a business for the first time, they get so caught up in the strategy of what they're going to do and how they're going to go about doing it that they actually forget to take the steps and just get going. So this is really important. When it comes to strategy first execution second, you don't want to get stuck in the mud, so to speak. You don't want to get stuck at that first stage where you become all consumed with the strategy that you don't actually get to the implementation part because that is where the magic happens.
The Dangers of Execution Without Strategy
00:03:19
Speaker
We just need to make sure that we've considered the strategy first before we press ahead. Now, equally, and on the other hand, so to speak, if you think about execution now, if you're only ever executing and you haven't actually considered the strategy part, then it is very likely that you're shooting from the hip. And this happens very often in business. It is either we are spending too much time in strategy as a business and we're not actually getting to the part where we're implementing and we're taking the plans that we've had and we're putting them into action, or we're running around like headless chooks and we are implementing left, right and center, but there's not actually any strategy that's being considered. And this is where the shooting from the hip becomes dangerous because in the context of business, if you're constantly shooting from the hip, you're likely not being very well considered about where you're aiming and what you're actually aiming to hit and where you're aiming to go in your business.
00:04:17
Speaker
And the other angle around this as well is you're likely wasting resources. So if we think about a normal general life situation about you jumping into a car and you know turning the keys in the ignition and off you go, if you don't have a destination that you're heading towards, you don't actually have a spot that you aim you're aiming to end up. It's highly likely that you'll run out of fuel, isn't it? Because you'll be driving around aimlessly and it will be a waste of
Balancing Strategy and Execution with Discernment
00:04:45
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resources. And this is exactly what happens in a business setting when you are shooting from the hip. Some of the things that you're doing may land, but a lot of it won't. And there is a much better way of going about it to ensure you get better bang for buck and you get better results in your business.
00:05:02
Speaker
Now, the key here is really to find balance because we don't want to be too much in strategy and we don't want to be too much in execution. We want to find the right balance. And when it comes to finding the right balance, there's no magic formula around a specific percentage of X amount of time in strategy and X amount of time in implementation. So how is a business owner or a business leader meant to know how much time should I be spending in strategy? or how much time should I be spending in execution mode? What is the correct balance? So the key here when it comes to finding that balance is something that I call discernment. And discernment is really about understanding when is the right time for you to spend time really crafting your strategy and getting that right.
Achieving Success with Strategy and Execution
00:05:54
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And when you just need to start putting those plans into action and taking action and getting your execution happening because
00:06:02
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If you are not using discernment, and if you're focusing on having a very specific percentage or formula that you're working to, well, A, in business we know that nothing ends up happening exactly as we planned it, but B, you're likely not going to use discernment when you're making decisions. So an example of this would be if you are taking a new product to market, and you have an error on packaging that is catastrophic, but you're going to miss a deadline for the launch date. You may decide that it is better for you to get the strategy right, for you to get that packaging perfect before you roll out thousands of units of something, rather than sticking to the launch date and pushing ahead as planned. So it's using discernment in that moment to work out, okay, is this something that I need to get caught up on the detail?
00:06:51
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And I really need to go back to the drawing board and strategize and get the right plan together. Or is this actually not that important? And we can rush ahead to the implementation and we can make corrections from there. So an example of this on the flip side would be if you're getting really caught up in perfectionism paralysis over an Instagram story. and how perfect an Instagram story is despite the fact that it's only live for 24 hours. Is that really a good investment of your time to go back to the drawing board constantly around an Instagram story? So it's the art of using discernment to know when the time is right for you to really zoom in and zone in on your strategy.
00:07:33
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And when the time is right for you to get going, stop strategizing and start doing. Because this is something that can hold a business owner back or hold a business back when you're focusing too much on the strategy and you're spending too much time devising the plan and not enough time actually doing. But there is a balance and there is a level of discernment that's required to understand. when you're zooming in way too much on the strategy and when it's time to get going with the implementation. And on the flip side, when you're shooting from the hip and you actually just need to take a breather to go back to the drawing board and make sure that you've got your strategy down pat.
Assessing and Adjusting Focus on Strategy vs Execution
00:08:15
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So this concept of strategy first, execution second is incredibly important because what we see is when you have your strategy right
00:08:26
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when you have a winning strategy for your business, and you couple that with rapid execution or implementation velocity, and you have a magnetic leader that is driving that business to success, and they understand how to use discernment of, this is important for us to go back to the drawing board, or no, we can push ahead. What we see is when you combine those two things together, you end up with a business that's in the top 10%. and you don't become the majority that's failing in the 90% that's only getting one or the other right. So what I'll leave you with in this episode with this concept of strategy first execution second is reflect on where you are in business right now and ask yourself, am I focusing too much on strategy at the moment or am I focusing too much on execution? And what can I implement into my business to be able to provide me
00:09:24
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with a framework to make decisions and use discernment when it comes to the idea of strategy first, execution second.
Episode Wrap-Up and Engagement Encouragement
00:09:34
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So I hope you've enjoyed today's episode and you've learned lots about one of my favorite topics or things strategy. I'd love if you could subscribe to the podcast and share it with someone in your world that has a business too that you think could benefit from the episodes that I share here. And I'd love also for you to reach out to me on Instagram. I love receiving your messages as well. So thanks so much for supporting the podcast and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.