Strategy, Execution & Culture: The foundation for a successful business

Marca Marketing
Feb 16
5 min read

Updated: Feb 27

Every company begins a new year with a plan, but if we are honest, the gap between the plan and executing the strategy is where most organizations fall short. What is the mistake? What separates companies that successfully close the strategy-execution gap? The art of execution discipline. Let’s delve into the key pillars that companies need to cultivate to transform their teams into an execution-driven mindset.

Pillars for Rapid Sustainable Growth

1. Execution Velocity as Culture

Hire with the mentality to build teams that will achieve your vision with and without your presence. A leadership culture equips teams with an execution mindset. They promote a workplace where curiosity, initiative, and velocity are the center of their daily basics, which means rapid business growth. Let me share stories from my own experience. My first professional job after college was working as a Marketing Manager at Walmart in the SAM’s Club division. During my onboarding process, I received two valuable books as powerful job tools: Sam Walton: Made in America and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader by John C. Maxwell. Definitely, it’s about a company that emphasizes a leadership culture. These books, combined with the work experience, sowed the seeds of my leadership mindset.

But how can we cultivate these powerful skills? What’s the secret? Connecting; connecting is key. The best leaders are always excellent connectors. And that is the seed you must cultivate. For Instance, Curiosity: Listen actively to your team. Ask them how they think they could do it or solve it. Initiative: Focus on offering solutions before discussing problems or opportunities; encourage your team to always have a plan B, which means deliver more than expected. And, Velocity: Put speed into your actions. Let's give you another insightful example. I remember that in a top-level management visit during a strategic plan presentation, I communicated to the Vice President that the 2nd-semester strategy for a product launch that the headquarters had proposed was not sufficiently aggressive to provide a competitive advantage for the Caribbean market. So, I suggested customizing it according to the customer demands in the Caribbean region (which means deglobalization; a significant increase in the marketing budget). As a leader, he listened to my feedback with attention. And, when I finished explaining it, he immediately requested to pause the presentation and called headquarters for a quick meeting with the Marketing VP to discuss our findings. Consequently, during the meeting, we adapted the brand strategy, understanding the region's needs. A strategy that brought significant results in the company. That means velocity. However, it’s not that the headquarters suggest a bad strategy; they propose a strategy that they believe could work better for the company. But our role when we are in charge of a region is to take the initiative and provide new strategic solutions that promote velocity and growth for the business.

To conclude this insightful experience, imagine the same meeting in a company without an execution velocity mindset. The VP response could be something like "Okay, thanks for your feedback. Provide us with two weeks to give you a response". In short: You run your business or your business runs you.

2. Data, Numbers & Facts as Storytelling

Indeed, develop a team to speak with data. Invest in AI tools and data-driven sources, such as Nielsen or Circana, to provide a deep understanding of your market and customer needs. Utilizing research and predictive analytics tools that can redefine your daily operations and accelerate your business growth. Let me share a similar story about this point. A few years ago, I worked with RIVA Spain, a luxury hardwood floor company. So, as part of the strategic marketing plan. We proposed several activations to connect and engage with one of the RIVA target audiences: the A&D sector. And one of those activations was designing a brand magazine with the objective of being distributed in the RIVA Galleries. A magazine, titled R Design, served as an organic marketing & sales material as well as a conversation piece for the A&D community that visited the galleries, enriched with global trends and insights from the design industry.

However, the magic of this project lies in creating a magazine in collaboration with the marketing team members. All through a creative brainstorming session, where each team member was responsible for developing their assigned topic. It was a beautiful project! Also, a curious note was that during the same trimester, one of the U.S. top design magazines published an issue with the same theme and a similar topic about the trends for that year. What a surprise!

In conclusion, foster your team to delve into the customer interest. Challenge their thoughts and capabilities, pushing them to achieve things they never imagined. This experience highlights and demonstrates to them the significance of their role and contribution to the company. That’s your role as a leader.

“Relationships are the glue that holds team members together. It’s not about your IQ; it’s how you manage yourself and your relationships."

3. Stronger-EQ Teams

Building strong teammates requires cultivating trust, open communication, and mutual respect as the seed of a successful team. As John C. Maxwell used to say, “Relationships are the glue that holds team members together.” Indeed, emotional intelligence is the key to high-performance levels in a leadership culture. It’s not about your IQ; it’s how you manage yourself and your relationships. Many companies invest in test assessments to identify potential candidates that could be the perfect match for a specific role.

However, several companies still rely on traditional tests, such as math, problem-solving situations, and statistics. But do these tests truly confirm that the candidate competes for a leadership position? I prefer to say that personality tests, psychology interviews, and a teammate workshop meeting, as Human Relations seminars, provide the skills for an execution discipline-emotional intelligence team.

According to Daniel Goleman, a psychologist and author of Emotional Intelligence. He suggests challenging the following capabilities: Self-awareness, Self-management, Social awareness, and Relationship management, based on his Emotional Intelligence models. Types of assessments that today's leadership culture should prioritize to foster a wellness-oriented, high execution workplace.

To grasp more about cultivating strong teams, review one of our previous articles: The True Value of being Passionate about your Work.

4. Customer-First Strategy

I knew an amazing leader who had a unique approach during his first interaction with their team through the following question: If you receive three calls — one from a client, one from your Manager, and another one from the company CEO (him). Which call are you supposed to answer first? As a leader, he always expected that you would choose the client first, followed by the Manager, and ultimately the CEO (him). In short: The client pays your salary.

In fact, first-interaction resolution and a fast response are most valued by today's customers. A customer-first strategy creates a foundation for profitability, growth, and long-term relationships. This means organizations need to prioritize continually improving their ability to quickly and completely resolve customer concerns. Also, an AI modern marketing funnel could work as an excellent measurement to track your business improvement on consumer expectations and experience. Based on “The State of Customer Experience” survey from GENESYS. The attributes that customers value in modern business interactions are: Knowledgeable agent (37%), and interactions being handled with professionalism and friendliness (34%) are priorities, as are listening and empathy (30%). These are attributes that customers highly value through modern business interactions.