Brent Scowcroft once said, “An idea can be as flawless as can be, but its execution will always be full of mistakes.” It makes me think about execution. Is it a strategy or a tactic?
Disciplined execution of an idea or plan is tactical. But the plan to achieve disciplined execution is a strategy. You are not going to achieve a high level of execution by accident. So execution done well becomes both a strategy and a tactic.
Execution becomes important to everything we do. Consider something as simple as an exercise plan. First we will need an exercise plan, then a strategy to execute it, then the discipline to execute it every week.
To be successful, we need to consider execution at every step, and then evaluate our execution in reflection. Finally defining the steps to improve our execution. As Jeff Bridges has said, “Execution is everything.”