The thesis of my upcoming book, Execution IS the Strategy (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, March 2014), is simple: business moves so fast today that you must empower front-line workers to take strategy into their own hands, moving ahead with what works and executing in the moment to maximize organizational success. We can no longer leave strategy to executive teams that plan 3-5 years ahead, because multiyear plans go stale before the toner dries on the printouts. Think about it: Do you remember what was big five years ago? I don't. Very little of it matters anymore, so why should you execute against those priorities---or even last year's, for that matter?

Effective strategic execution becomes a matter of allowing your team to choose the appropriate tools at hand, combining them with the right training and whatever tactics seem the most appropriate in order to get it all done. The savvy leader lets his or her people take charge and take chances when necessary, without punishing them when things go wrong, because no one can learn without making mistakes. 

The Harvard Edge 

Even so, you require at least a barebones framework in place to drive your work toward your strategic goals. So make it clear to your team what you will and won't allow in terms of workplace behavior. As economist Michael E. Porter points out, "Strategy renders choices about what not to do as important as choices about what to do." 

Dr. Porter, a Harvard Professor, may well be the country's top expert on business strategy, having written 18 books on the topic. Indeed, his colleagues consider him the father of modern business strategy, and many businesses and governments accept his theories as both groundbreaking and practical. Unlike some academics, he hasn't insulated himself from the field he studies and writes about: He's led economic strategy programs in several countries and founded three non-profit organizations.

The Don'ts

Often, we focus so tightly on what we can and should do in terms of strategy that we miss the obvious: what Porter calls the choices about what not to do. No doubt Porter intended his statement to mostly apply to the big things: failed large-scale schemas, joint ventures, unprofitable directions, or technologies it would be wasteful to adopt. But it all starts with the small, day-to-day decisions on the team level. For example, in Execution IS the Strategy, I discuss five things that should never sway a decision about what to do next:

• What you feel like doing.
• An item's order of appearance on your to-do list.
• What comes to mind next.
• Who's screaming the loudest.
• The order of the sticky note.

These reflect basic, low-level common-sense decisions. You should avoid other behaviors as well---not just because they waste time---but because if taken too far they can tear a team apart. All should be obvious, but some folks never do learn common sense, so you may have to explicitly outlaw them.