Everyone Plans a Strategy, Few Execute. What’s going on?

Why Your Strategic Plan Stalls and What to Do About It

Strategic planning comes into play when your leaders start to ask “Are we moving in the right direction?” If the answer is no, the process starts – you gather your team, set priorities, and identify a plan of action. Then… Too often, day-to-day business gets in the way, your team slips back into old routines, and in the end, the plan doesn’t get implemented, creating a gap between planning and execution.

If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone, and it doesn’t have to be this way.

The problem isn’t the planning session. It’s the gap between the strategy and the execution. In this article, we explore five common breakdowns that derail execution and offer practical ways to overcome them, so your next strategic plan delivers real results.

The Strategy–Execution Gap

According to Cascade’s State of Strategy Report for 2025:

• 78% cannot consistently access the necessary data for decision-making
• Only 26% of organizations translate their vision into an actionable plan (the same percentage of organizations also ensure their teams understand the company’s top priorities)
• 80% of organizations report that cross-functional teams are not aligned.

If execution is where most organizations struggle, what’s going wrong?

Issue #1: It’s More Than Alignment, it’s Coordination

Alignment across leadership is critical, but if you don’t carry your strategic planning down to departments, and those departments don’t coordinate, how do your teams make things happen? 30% of managers cite failure to coordinate across units as the single greatest challenge to executing their company’s strategy. (HBR)

Issue #2: The Roadmap isn’t a Straight Line

Once you have your strategic plan in place, have defined ownership and accountability and planned your budget, you can’t stop taking the time to strategically review. Markets change, regulations change, and technology changes – and your strategy should evolve with these changes. Successful organizations are two times more likely to pivot and adjust strategies to respond to metric insights and changes in the business context.

Issue #3: Communication ≠ Understanding

Communicating the strategy doesn’t guarantee it’s understood. A Gartner study found that several barriers impact execution — unclear responsibilities, lack of specific prioritise, and inability to relay objectives to teams and individual members. Consider:

• 83% of strategies fail because of faulty assumptions.
• 67% of employees do not understand their role in new initiatives.

If your team can’t describe your plan and their role in it, in their own words, how can they execute it?

Issue #4: Who’s Driving the Bus?

If your executive team is making all the calls on execution, you’re limiting capacity and increasing the risk of your execution unravelling. Middle managers are the face of your company to most employees, partners, and customers, and they are the ones who should be driving the strategic execution bus. But in doing so, they need to be nurtured, supported, and guided from the top. A survey of over 500 business leaders revealed that more than 60% identified a lack of engagement from middle managers as a major obstacle to effective strategy implementation. LSA Global

Execution succeeds when your middle management layer owns the plan and is not just following it. But that requires clear authority, support, and coaching.

Issue #5: Strong Performance Culture ≠ Strong Execution

Performance is often rewarded. Adaptability? Not as much. When strategy execution fails to translate into results, a weak performance culture is an easy scapegoat. In fact, half of the surveyed managers worry their careers would suffer if they pursued an idea that failed. And only a third feel comfortable raising difficult issues. (HBR)

So, if companies have a strong performance culture, why are they struggling to execute strategy? The answer is that too much emphasis is placed on performance. More value is focused on a manager’s ability to hit their numbers, and much less value on their ability to adapt to changing circumstances, an indication of the agility needed to execute strategy.

In other words, if performance trumps coordination, it will undermine strategy execution. Does performance trump coordination in your organization?

The Fix: 3 Ways to Bridge the Strategy–Execution Gap

Solution 1: Check- Ins

To improve coordination (issue #1), shift who participates in progress check-ins. Invite middle managers, supervisors, and relevant external partners, without senior executives in the room.

Let those closest to the work discuss challenges and align support. This also addresses Issue #4, Who Drives the Strategic Bus?, where the “burden of success” rests with middle managers and their teams.  If you want your middle managers to own the plan, they need authority with responsibility.

Solution 2: Build a Culture of Adaptation

Innovation is not a department, it is a mindset. Everyone in the organization needs to be attuned to shifts in technology, markets, or regulations that may impact what might have otherwise been a wise strategic initiative, allowing you to address issues #2 and #5.

Coach your teams to recognize change and respond intentionally.

Solution 3: Ask, “Do You Get It?”

Once the plan is rolled out, ask your teams to describe:

• What is one thing I’ll do to move the strategy forward?
• Why does it matter to me?

If they can’t answer, the message hasn’t landed. And if they can? That’s when strategy becomes real.

Reframe Strategy as Execution

Strategic planning is essential, but the initial plan is only the beginning. The real differentiator is how you execute. By identifying factors that may be stalling progress, managers at all levels can re-focus efforts to get back on track. The strategic plan may be the steering wheel, but execution of the strategy is the engine that propels it forward.

Execution isn’t just a follow-up to strategy—it’s what brings it to life.

Questions to Consider:

1. Can your team name your top three strategic priorities—and what they’re doing to support them?
2. Are your departments collaborating or working in silos?
3. Are expectations realistic and clearly defined?
4. Are you trying to execute too many priorities at once?
5. Do you have a true strategy—or just a document that feels like one?

At X5 Management, we work with organizations that are tired of seeing plans stall after the offsite. If you’re facing poor follow-through, misaligned priorities, or teams overwhelmed by competing demands, we can help.

Our experienced facilitators support you to:

• Uncover and remove execution barriers that are slowing your progress.
• Create clear, focused Strategy Solutions Worksheets—with timelines, owners, and accountability built in.
• Align and energize your teams around what matters most—no more scattered efforts or vague priorities.
• Establish follow-up systems that ensure traction, momentum, and measurable progress.

We don’t just help you build the plan – we help you deliver it.  Book a call with us today to get started.