Leverage the Best Strategy Execution Methods
In our recent webinar on 3/27, Paul Niven and I discussed the idea of leveraging some of the best strategy methods in a hybrid approach to maximize results in strategy execution. In this conversation and demo, we covered the history of strategic planning, goal setting and four of the most popular and useful approaches today including The Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX).
Paul briefed the history and highlights of each process building on his long history of implementing and writing about The Balanced Scorecard over 20 years culminating in his best-selling book, “Balanced Scorecard Evolution” which was published in 2014 after the original creation of BSC by Robert Kaplan and David Norton in 1992. BSC Evolution is an excellent playbook for implementing any strategic planning and execution framework and the topic of strategy mapping can be utilized for high value in modern approaches such as OKRs.
OKRs is one of the most implemented strategy methods today but is also commonly misinterpreted and misused with failed or low-value implementations. We discussed several best practices to consider providing higher value and success with OKRs, especially while combining it with some of the best components from BSC, KPI and 4DX. Paul authored “Objectives and Key Results: Driving Focus, Alignment and Engagement with OKRs” in 2016 and recently published “OKRs for Dummies” in 2024 after many successful client implementations at his company OKRs Training. OKRs for Dummies is one of the best playbooks for successfully implementing OKRs for any organization today.
We also discussed how KPIs and 4DX can be utilized with BSC and OKRs. KPIs are an important component for any strategic implementation because they provide all the insights necessary to help business leaders decide on what to prioritize for OKRs and Wildly Important Goals based on the overall health of the business. One of the best practices for using KPIs is to provide easy side-by-side access to KPI data alongside OKRs during strategic planning and regular business reviews to have a complete dashboard of relevant metrics and support data-related questions from senior management.
4DX is now a mature process from FranklinCovey (first implemented in 2001) that has been widely accepted across many industries and organizations. Chris McChesney is one of the primary authors of the process and book and recently provided an excellent keynote segment in March at FranklinCovey’s 2025 Impact Conference. McChesney discussed lessons learned after over 4000 implementations over the past 20 years, many of which are highlighted in the 2nd edition of 4DX that was published in 2021. In my previous experience as a CEO of a large software company between 1997-2022, I found that 4DX was the most impactful of the methods we used for strategic execution. Each discipline plays an important role. Discipline 1 is Focus on the Wildly Important which is a common solution to an issue that we see with many OKR clients. Many organizations try to achieve too many OKRs in their strategies, especially as they are new to adopting the process. Discipline 1 recommends just one to four Wildly Important Goals (WIG) at the strategy level and only 1 WIG for any given team (where an individual should only be working on a single Team WIG at any time). Discipline 2 is Act on the Lead Measures which helps teams brainstorm on the most influenceable and actionable things that can do to move the goals forward. Discipline 3 is Keep a Compelling Scoreboard to assure players of teams can tell if they’re winning or losing on their goal. The most valuable discipline in my opinion is Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability for all teams in an organization to hold weekly accountability sessions for progress against their Wildly Important Goals. OKRs are an excellent framework to integrate with 4DX because both the critical lag measure outcomes and lead measures can be represented in “X to Y by When” terms via the key results within an OKR. Software tools like Inspire Software can easily and effectively represent the Teams Scoreboard, track key commitments, and help achieve results.
Check out our discussion and software demo here for more insight on how to utilize these 4 methods to maximize your performance and results.
