Preamble

Any strategy comes to life through effective implementation. But the chasm between vision and action is what most companies struggle to cross. While we point to things like insufficient resources, poor communication, or a lack of accountability as the problem, what isn’t considered are the leadership behaviors that create the conditions for dysfunction. This book explores a long-term study which uncovered the three most detrimental behaviors, their impact on strategy execution, and how to stop them from derailing success.

Part I: Calm Like a Bomb

The first behavior -- Idea Bombing -- is when leaders constantly launch new initiatives only to abandon them midstream for the next big idea. This teaches employees to wait out new directives rather than commit to them, since they’ll change in short order. I explore how Idea Bombing conflates constant motion for actual progress, and the insidious way it destroys an organization's ability to execute sustainable change.

Part II: Get Off My Cloud

The second behavior – Clouding – is where leaders craft broad strategies using ambiguous jargon. This causes widely varying interpretations of the strategy, resulting in fragmented execution because employees don’t have a clear line-of-sight from their work to strategic outcomes. I unpack real-world examples of Clouding -- including phrases like ‘foster collaboration’ and ‘create value’ -- how these abstractions create a false sense of alignment and obscure the implementation path for both leaders and employees.

Part III: Black Hole Sun

The third behavior -- Sunshining -- emerges when leaders cling to an over-idealized view of the company and dismiss any perspectives that challenge their narrative. As a result, employees hold back from sharing candid customer needs or organizational issues which contradict the strategy. These blinders perpetuate an environment where silence equals safety, and ideas are stifled before they see daylight. I explore how this behavior forces employees into a false choice between compliance (doing what they’re told) or commitment (driving change because they believe they can make an impact).

Part IV: Company Culture

When these behaviors spread beyond a single team through fleeting company-wide reorgs, tech upheavals, and process disruptions, it creates conflict between strategic objectives and departmental goals. It causes a corporate ‘Sophie’s choice’, forcing employees to choose between contradictory directives. I discuss examples of this trap, how it cultivates Fait Accompli (another damaging behavior), and ultimately a culture of change-resistance.

Part V: Human Behavior

The study uncovered that these behaviors originate from having an incomplete strategy – one which addresses the big-picture vision, goals and objectives, but fails to explain the ‘how’. How every leader and employee can translate the enterprise’s aspirations into concrete results for their area of responsibility. When employees don’t understand how they can impact strategy, their behaviors don’t change. And aligned behavior change, both for employees and leadership, is critical to successful strategy execution.

Part VI: Don't Sweat the Technique

Rather than trying to control or contain these reactionary leadership behaviors, the better approach is using what psychologists call ‘sublimation’ – redirecting their underlying energy constructively.In layman’s terms, it means creating an actionable through-line to positively channel these behaviors.

That begins with creating a single, authentic"Guiding Principle". Your Guiding Principle serves as your strategy’s ‘center of gravity’. A good Principle must pass five tests: it must be a strategic truth applicable organization-wide, deliverable consistently over time, amplify a genuine differentiator rather than an aspiration, allow for creative interpretation, and address what audiences want and need. Through examples including Nike and Patagonia, I illustrate how companies use their Guiding Principle not as marketing slogans but as a decision-making filter.

Part VII: Let's Stay Together

The second step is creating three “Core Commitments” – expanding on your Guiding Principle. These don’t concentrate on a single function, product, or service, but rather illustrate what your entire organization commits to delivering consistently that embodies your Guiding Principle.

Core Commitments need to answer two questions: how can we embody our Guiding Principle to our customers’ benefit, and what valuable, differentiating outcomes does that create? Through a series of examples, I explore how they’re used to create a focused narrative, clarifying the interconnection between the organization’s unique strengths, customer needs, and the company’s strategic objectives.

Part VIII: Down to This

Finally, there are the “Supporting Actions” -- nine concrete behaviors that explain how to live your Core Commitments everyday. They aren’t individual initiatives or tactics -- they illustrate how your Commitments become part of the company’s operating DNA. They represent what the entire organization should be doing and thinking every day.

Great Supporting Actions must do three things: provide clarity on what actions employees should take, explain the bigger purpose for those actions, and be measurable. I dive into examples of how leaders use their Supporting Actions as a decision-filter for initiatives, projects, and activities that drive strategy execution.

Part VIIII: Action This Day

When you bring the three parts together, you get an organizational "Steering Guide”. The Steering Guide is a one-page canvas to explain the strategy’s ‘center of gravity’ (Guiding Principle), the steadfast organizational priorities (Core Commitments) and how everyone can live those priorities daily (Supporting Actions).

This serves as the strategy’s Rosetta Stone. It establishes consensus on what’s most important to customers, which organizational strengths to capitalize on, and how the company needs to behave to amplify it. I share real-world case studies showing how leaders use the Guide to align organizational mindsets, behaviors, and initiatives around a single strategic locus while preserving flexible implementation.

Part X: Changes

The Steering Guide corrals Idea Bombing, Clouding, and Sunshining behaviors in three distinct ways. First, it anchors strategy in a core strategic differentiator, enabling random suggestions (Idea Bombing) to pass through a simple alignment filter, rather than individual’s perceptions. Second, it clears the fog of vague and obscure jargon (Clouding) by defining specific commitments and concrete organizational behaviors. Third, it challenges over-idealized views (Sunshining) by grounding decisions in outcomes rather than corporate narratives. Through a series of client case studies, I illustrate how the Guide transforms performative strategy (which fosters these behaviors) into a universal, transparent, and aligned way of moving forward.

Part XI: Don't Stop Me Now

The Steering Guide isn’t solely for corporate leadership. It is also used by individual departments and teams to create their own ‘supporting strategies’ -- a set of strategically aligned initiatives and projects for their domain. These are prioritized using a TITE grid (Tolerate, Invest, Transition, Eliminate) assessment tool, ensuring the right ones come to the forefront.

I also dig into how the Guide is used to measure strategic execution and alignment on three levels; by individual initiatives (whether projects align with Core Commitments), by cultural performance (whether behaviors align with Supporting Actions), and by company performance (organization-wide KPIs tied to the Guiding Principle).

Part XII: Weapon of Choice

The Steering Guide doesn’t just help bridge the strategy-execution gap. It also helps shape organizational culture and change acceptance. Strategy only becomes culture when it drives how people make decisions, navigate challenges, and innovate within constraints. I discuss through a series of examples how the Steering Guide provides the clarity required to enable leaders and employees to think in new ways and explore different avenues of innovation.

Epilogue

You can also create your own Steering Guide, serving as a personal credo to demonstrate strategically aligned ways of working, thinking, and ideating. This enables individuals to positively influence their team’s culture through modeling strategically aligned behaviors.