Strategic Execution: Driving Breakthrough Performance in Business

CEOs regularly identify strategic execution as their biggest challenge, and the top priority facing today's business leaders. Based on their research with senior executives across a variety of industries--and including firms like Marriott, Microsoft, SunTrust, UPS, and Vail Resorts--Kenneth J. Carrig and Scott A. Snell have distilled the elements that are most critical for execution. This book addresses the challenges of execution, why it matters, and why the approach remains elusive. It introduces an integrated framework for understanding four priorities underlying execution excellence. Ultimately, it all comes down to alignment, agility, ability, and architecture. The authors lay out a process for applying the framework, helping business leaders to diagnose their challenges and to determine their path toward breakthrough performance.

Kenneth J. Carrig is former Corporate Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for SunTrust Banks. He now serves as an advisor to CEOs. He has been a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources since 2004. Carrig is co-author of Building Profit through Building People (SHRM, 2008), the proceeds of which benefit Share Our Strength, an organization dedicated to fighting childhood hunger. Scott A. Snell is Professor of Business Administration and former Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business. He is co-author of several books, notably Management: Leading and Collaborating in a Competitive World, 12th Edition (McGraw-Hill, 2016) and Managing Human Resources, 18th Edition (Cengage, 2018).