Strategy That Works

The proposed route from strategy to execution runs through a small set of capabilities that reinforce one another in serving a chosen customer need. A value proposition establishes what the company intends to offer. Leaders then identify abilities that would let it deliver that value distinctively and repeatedly, rather than treating every competent function as a source of advantage. Products and services belong in the portfolio when they can draw on that system; each offering gives the organization another opportunity to apply and strengthen it.

Developing those abilities requires changes in work, not just agreement among executives. Leinwand and Mainardi describe designing how a capability should operate, improving practices through successive management interventions, and spreading both documented know-how and experience gained through practice. Because important capabilities often cross functional boundaries, their performance depends on how people, processes, information, and tools work together. A strong department alone may not produce the intended customer experience.

Culture and spending reinforce the same choices. Established habits can help people carry a strategy into daily decisions when those habits support the work the company wants to excel at. Concentrating resources on differentiating capabilities makes room for their development; undifferentiated cuts risk weakening the very system on which the strategy depends. Finally, leaders can use those capabilities to assess new opportunities rather than simply reacting to every market change. The five practices form a reinforcing account: the customer promise guides capability building, and what the enterprise learns to do well informs the promises it can credibly make next.

The book’s strongest contribution is making strategic fit an investment question rather than a slogan about focus. Its account asks leaders to consider three things together: the value customers receive, the abilities required to provide it, and the offerings through which those abilities pay off. That is a more discriminating test than asking whether a proposed initiative is valuable in isolation. An attractive product, a technically strong team, or a widely admired practice may still contribute little to the particular way the enterprise intends to compete.

The argument also directs attention to the cost of building a distinctive ability. Leinwand and Mainardi’s public account describes capabilities as combinations of practices and knowledge that take time to develop and scale. This helps explain why declaring a new strategic priority, adopting an industry benchmark, or funding a technology purchase cannot by itself create a reliable organizational ability. The associated spending choice matters as much as the ambition: resources directed toward unrelated work are unavailable for the capabilities that support the customer promise.

The useful insight is not that every company needs the same strengths. It is that leaders need to explain why these strengths belong together, how they will be developed, and where they will be used.

The book’s examples cannot establish that adopting its five practices will produce the same results elsewhere. In their essay adapted from the book, Leinwand and Mainardi explain that they deliberately selected 14 enterprises known for unusual proficiency. Studying such companies can reveal instructive patterns, but the selection does not show how often similar efforts fail or separate the effects of these practices from other advantages the companies may have had.

The harder judgment is determining which abilities really are distinctive and worth strengthening. A leadership team might label familiar strengths as strategic because they are already funded, then reject new opportunities that would challenge its preferred identity. Conversely, spreading investment across every initiative associated with a broad customer promise defeats the authors’ emphasis on concentration. Either mistake can turn coherence into a justification for existing choices rather than a test of them.

The argument also places a substantial burden on execution. Cross-functional capabilities must be made dependable beyond a successful team or pilot, while savings from less relevant work must actually reach the areas chosen for development. Leaders should therefore treat a proposed capability system as a proposition to examine against customer response and repeated operating performance—not as proof of advantage simply because its components sound mutually reinforcing.

The strongest connection to strategic coherence is the book’s three-part test: can leaders explain how their customer promise, distinctive capabilities, and chosen offerings support one another? This moves the discussion beyond whether a strategy is clearly written. If a proposed offering cannot make meaningful use of the capabilities receiving investment, or a prized capability does not help deliver customer value, the supposed fit needs examination. The test also distinguishes an ability that is important to operations from one that matters to the company’s particular way of competing.

A second connection concerns allocation. Capability development competes for money and attention with other worthwhile work. Leinwand and Mainardi’s account suggests judging spending by its contribution to the chosen system, rather than assuming equal cuts or equal support are strategically neutral. An OutcomesLab application would ask which interdependent changes in work must be funded together before the organization can deliver its promise reliably. That is a proposed use of the authors’ ideas, not a separate finding established by their examples. It makes the allocation decision more exacting: leaders must identify both what they will strengthen and what they will stop supporting at the same level.

There is a tension between commitment and discovery. A coherent identity can help leaders decline distractions, but a fixed account of what the company does best could also obscure evidence that customers’ needs—or the organization’s abilities—are changing. Leaders should make the capability system specific enough to guide choices while remaining willing to revise it. The book adds a useful discipline to strategic-coherence thinking: show the connection between value and ability in actual offerings, direct sustained investment toward making that connection dependable, and test whether the connection still holds as conditions change.

Use the argument when investment requests are individually plausible but collectively unfocused, or when a strategy depends on abilities the organization cannot yet deliver consistently. Start with a specific customer promise and trace the work required to fulfill it. Do not use a capability inventory as a substitute for choosing: the point is to distinguish abilities central to that promise from abilities the company merely needs to perform adequately.

An executive team can test a proposed capability system with five questions:

1. What customer value are we choosing to provide, and through which offerings?
2. Which few abilities must work together to make that value credible and difficult to replicate?
3. What must change in everyday practices, coordination, information, or tools for those abilities to become dependable?
4. Which current expenditures strengthen that system, and which compete with it for resources without serving it?
5. What customer and operating evidence would cause us to continue, adjust, or abandon the investment?

Assign owners to the cross-functional changes and review performance in representative work over time. A completed project or successful pilot shows progress, not necessarily a capability that the wider enterprise can use. Equally, do not dismiss an unfamiliar opportunity solely because it does not fit today’s description of the company. Ask whether it exposes a weakness in the proposed system or a reason to revise the customer promise.