How to Manage: Executing Strategy

Women at Work

Harvard Business Review

Entrepreneurship, Workplace, Business/management, Business/entrepreneurship, Progress, Resources, Gender, Equality, Business/careers, Women, Hbr, Careers, Management, Business, Harvard, Human

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Strategist Andrea Belk Olson spells out how to make the most of the latest corporate master plan that’s now your job to put into action. She suggests important questions to ask yourself before hitting the ground running, ways to handle resistance from team members, what to do when the plan isn’t working well, and points to include in progress updates.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review.
0:03.1	I'm Amy Bernstein.
0:05.6	When I think of what I do every single day in my work,
0:09.0	it really comes down to moving the teams I oversee
0:12.3	toward our strategic goals.
0:15.0	You know, I make decisions about priorities and about how people are spending their time.
0:20.0	I give guidance on which direction to take on any given project, but everything is really always
0:26.8	about making sure everyone knows where we're going and that we're all in sync getting there.
0:35.0	Getting teams to move in sync as you probably know can be super challenging.
0:41.0	And my personal style was meet with the team weekly.
0:45.4	And it was a big whiteboard of what's going right and what's not and what do you need.
0:51.0	Andrea Belk Olson is a strategy consultant who's written for
0:54.7	HBR about the challenges executing a strategy presents for mid-level managers.
1:00.3	Like when the plan seems vague or uninspired or unattainable.
1:05.0	She's also written about the opportunities carrying out the master plan can present,
1:11.0	which she and I'll cover from the beginning to the end of our
1:14.4	conversation. She'll advise on how to get clarity when there isn't enough and
1:19.5	how to address employee's skepticism. She'll also suggest ways to get people to pay
1:24.8	attention to and care about your progress updates. Mid-level managers are the ones
1:30.9	who, as Andrea rights, can make or break the plan.
1:35.0	So let's make the plan, okay?
1:38.0	Because being proactive and deliberate, instead of simply going through the motions is the right and frankly more
	...

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