Before we say managers have departed from the strategy, how do we know they understood it well enough to act on it?
I once spent months alongside a CEO who expected his experienced leadership team to translate a detailed strategic vision into operational plans, business unit by business unit. He also expected directors to take responsibility for the cross-functional work where ownership was unclear.
The directors were committed to making the strategy work. Yet they interpreted their contribution through established expertise and longstanding practices, without sufficiently questioning what it now required of their divisions.
They were trying to deliver a new strategy through an unchanged understanding of their jobs.
Repeated follow-up and realignment meetings provided encouragement and direction, but did not sufficiently clarify what each business unit needed to do differently—or who would lead the work between functions.
This is where I began the diagnosis with the leadership team.
A clear message is only the beginning
Attending a town hall, agreeing with the direction or repeating the company's priorities does not, by itself, establish operational understanding.
For me, the useful question is what a leader can explain beyond the headline: the outcome their function must contribute, the operational choices involved and what those choices require from others.
Those explanations then need to be compared with actual priorities, decisions and commitments. Understanding must become visible in how the work is organized and carried out.
Seniority and job title cannot substitute for that examination.
A headline for every function
Each function needs its own translation of the strategy, embedded in the whole picture.
A headline for every function. And a subtitle for the cross-functional work where friction could derail the system.
The big headline gives direction. Its functional translation should make the contribution concrete: what needs to change, what the operational plan is, which responsibilities connect with other functions and where decisions will involve trade-offs.
I ask functional leaders to explain:
What outcome is your function expected to contribute to the company's objective?
What does your operational plan prioritize—and what will receive less attention?
Which other functions must contribute to your execution, and what do they need from you?
Which adjustments can you make yourself, and which require a shared decision?
These are questions for a working discussion. They help clarify what each leader is expected to deliver, and under what conditions.
In this case, I worked directly with directors to break down the strategy and identify where their business units could affect the overall result. We examined their cross-functional dependencies, the outcomes they needed to own and the commitments required.
We also worked on the operational questions they should raise with the CEO and the executive committee, accompanied by proposed solutions. This included questioning whether a locally sensible approach would support the company's overall objective.
Separately, I worked with the CEO on the clarity directors needed, individually and collectively—particularly when the strategic direction was changing. Expectations that seemed inherent in their positions still needed to be made explicit.
The plans must also work together
Two functions can each present a reasonable plan while relying on incompatible assumptions about capacity, timing or priorities.
I look beyond whether each plan appears sound on its own. Have the functions agreed on what they need from one another? Are those commitments possible with the resources and capability available? Who resolves the conflict when both cannot get what they need?
Each director is accountable for the agreed deliverables that other business units need to complete their work.
The receiving director must make dependencies clear, follow up and escalate unresolved failures. The director responsible for a missing deliverable must explain the failure, establish a recovery plan and follow through. Repeatedly chasing a commitment should not become another function's permanent burden.
At executive level, routine collaboration should not depend on a superior repeatedly instructing directors to honour their commitments. Unresolved failures require prompt intervention, with responsibility for corrective action made explicit.
When capacity constraints or conflicting priorities put a commitment at risk, the director must raise the issue early, explain its consequences and propose options. Some trade-offs require a decision beyond one director's authority.
Functions also need flexibility to support the company's overall result. Where an adjustment places extra demands on one function, leaders need to agree what will be deprioritized, resourced differently or renegotiated.
A change in a function's plan may be necessary for the company to stay on course. The original functional target cannot be the only basis for judging that change.
A January 2026 Harvard Business Review article, “When Strategy and Execution Fall Out of Sync,” similarly emphasizes clear expectations and systems that support coordination between those setting direction and those delivering it.
When strategy reaches the production floor
The same diagnostic discipline applies closer to the work: have the intended outcomes been translated into clear responsibilities and handovers?
Another director asked his production leaders to add more employees because production was falling behind schedule. Yet as more employees were added, productivity continued to fall across the operation.
A careful review revealed that employees on the production floor had not been given clear, step-by-step instructions about where their responsibilities began and ended, or when and to whom they should pass the baton once their work was complete.
More people were being added without a clear understanding of the constraints they faced. The number of supervisors remained the same, leaving less supervision available per person. Responsibility for tasks became more diffuse, and the production flow became chaotic.
Once responsibilities and handovers were clarified, task cards were introduced and ownership of each task was strengthened, performance recovered—with fewer people on the production floor.
Output per labour hour and total output increased. Delivery against schedule and quality improved, while rework and absenteeism declined. Workers also gained clearer visibility of their performance, accompanied by stronger commitment to the work.
In this case, adding people had amplified a problem in how the work was organized. The subsequent recovery followed changes to that organization.
Strategy has a life beyond KPI reporting. It reaches the production floor through decisions about staffing, supervision, workflow and responsibility. Those elements need to be examined together.
When understanding is present, look further
Poor execution does not prove misunderstanding.
If leaders can explain their contribution, their choices and their dependencies—and those explanations hold together—I examine what prevents them from acting accordingly.
Are incentives rewarding a different priority? Is the required workforce capability available? Do leaders have the financial resources and authority their plans assume? Has the market changed? Is there disagreement with the strategy that has never been addressed openly?
The diagnosis needs to connect expected outcomes and actual results with these conditions. A shortfall may appear in one function while its cause, or its correction, sits elsewhere.
More explanation from the CEO will not resolve every one of those problems.
Checkpoints that make correction possible
I work with checkpoints both within functions and between them. Their purpose is to examine results, changing conditions and the effects of operational adjustments while there is still an opportunity to respond.
What was expected? What has changed? What does the proposed correction ask of other functions? Does it offer a credible way to support the company's agreed overall objective?
Those discussions provide a basis for distinguishing useful adaptation from destructive drift. They also make it possible to revisit the overall objective explicitly if conditions have changed enough to challenge it.
In the leadership case, I also discussed with the CEO how to assess directors' decisions and follow-through once expectations were clarified and support provided. Their ability to raise relevant questions, propose solutions, coordinate with peers and honour commitments needed to be monitored. Accountability then had to be enforced; otherwise, the same difficulty could recur at the next strategic shift.
Before asking why a manager departed from the strategy, establish what was understood, what was agreed and what was possible.
Otherwise, wrong assumptions and untested alignment can create the conditions for drift long before results expose the shortfall. By then, people may be looking in the wrong place—and adding patches.
The shortfall becomes visible later. The conditions that allowed it may have been there from the start.
I’m Gwladys Levy. I help leaders and organizations clarify responsibilities, translate strategy into action, and identify what gets in the way of effectiveness.