reading

“The journey with Roy in creating our Strategic Game Plan and taking it to execution mode has been extremely rewarding not only for me but for each of our team members. Roy’s approach is so refreshingly DIFFERENT that I asked him to continue to guide us and hold our (my) feet to the fire. Through his hands-on and day to day coaching we continue to benefit from his rich knowledge, experience and very practical approach. Insulinpumps.ca has staked its position in the market as being a company that truly does STAND OUT.”— Melany Hellstern, President, insulinpumps.ca, Oakville, Ontario

“Roy was a critical force in guiding St John Ambulance to create a new and DiFFERENT Strategic Game Plan for our future. The Game Plan our Leadership Team created (in less than two days!) under Roy’s leadership and prodding is practical, pragmatic and compelling. Our ONLY Statement clearly separates St John from our competition. Roy adds more than great facilitation. His BE DiFFERENT expertise and rich experience allowed us to cut through the clutter and get to a winning Strategy FAST. In addition, his guidance and mentoring in implementing our Plan has enabled us to make amazing progress in a few short months! I heartily recommend Roy to ANY organization wanting to renew its direction and get on with it FAST”— Craig Wilson, Past Chair, St John Ambulance, Vancouver

“Two years ago I asked Roy to help me create a Strategy that would breathe life into my new business idea. He did that and more. His vast experience, achievements and personal engagement skills allowed me to create a practical Strategic Game Plan in less than 2 days! My Plan declares my market uniqueness through The ONLY Statement and I was able to begin executing as soon as my session with Roy was over. Want to carve out your direction? Call Roy. You will be extremely pleased with the results.”—Tina Thompson, CEO MUG Solutions, Vancouver

Having sons means learning when you thought you were supposed to be doing the teaching.

"The extraordinary—and accurate, as I see it—hypothesis is that we inordinately pay attention to strategy, customers, innovation, and the like, but not the true discriminator between success and failure—implementation!"-- Ram Charan, “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done”

Ya I know. I got the title bass-ackwards. What I really mean is Plan First and THEN Execute, right? NOPE!

If you want to BE DiFFERENT from The Herd, provide remarkable value for your fans and take their breath away when you serve them, you FIRST need to create an organization that has its core competency, its DNA, its lifeblood, to EXECUTE.

THEN, with this competency "baked" into the culture of the organization, apply it to where you “sorta” want to go - The Plan.

I'm not suggesting you delay planning until you have execution prowess. I am saying, however, you devote MORE time on building execution competency than you spend on charting your course.

And you ramp up execution faster than trying to get a perfect plan. If you want perfect, apply the energy to EXECUTE first and the Plan second.

The traditional Plan First - Execute Second method doesn't work in most cases. The priority is to establish the direction to take rather than on implementation even though everyone agrees that a great strategy on paper on its own is worth nothing.

And an idea that can't be transformed into action in the trenches through real people with their own views and bias creates no value.

Consultants build elaborate strategies for their clients using a portfolio of planning tools.