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Listen to The Closer, Cash from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green-Cormichael. Today I'm talking

with Paul Line Juan, co-author of the new book Strategy That Works. Paul, thank you so

much for talking with us today. Thank you. So the strategy execution gap is a classic

problem. It's one that you know we publish a lot about but somehow never seems to

be regularly able to be solved by people.

And I know you and your co-author,

Tezra Nardi, you've examined companies

that have managed to overcome it,

those few, those mighty few.

And the first thing that you have called out is that these

companies actually commit to what they do best instead of chasing multiple

opportunities and multiple priorities. That is really admirable discipline. I'm

wondering if you could tell us a little bit more

about how they managed to do that while still managing to adapt and be innovative.

It's a great question and I should start by saying that you know in

many of our surveys more than half of senior executives

report not having a winning strategy so we're starting an environment where people

don't feel confident about their ability to win in the market.

And when you ask about this gap between strategy and execution, I think there's really two big

things that are happening.

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