The Ends Are Easy

Why great ideas fail without strategy and execution.

I was having breakfast with an old friend once and we were commiserating about work. He was complaining about colleagues who have all these big ideas yet fail to understand they will require plans and resources. "The Ends are easy," I stated. We both had a laugh. Both of us served well over 20 years in uniform and we understand the fundamentals of strategy (Ends, Ways, and Means) very well.

A word on strategy. The word strategy intimidates many people. They envision a room of senior executives with 50lb brains formulating a plan to send a person to Mars. Strategy is just a plan to do something, albeit something rather large and important. We subconsciously strategize about a lot of things. Strategy is comprised of three elements, and just like a three-legged stool, cannot stand upright with a missing leg.

1. ENDS: Ends are the actual objective, what will be done or what will be happening.

2. WAYS: Ways are methods to accomplish the ends. If strategic Ends are a safer work environment (with a clear definition of what 'safer' means), Ways would be a new set of daily activities or policies to be followed to achieve the Ends.

3. MEANS: Means are simply resources. A new safety manager and a staff might be required or a portion of the budget allocated to help achieve ends.

Thus the Ends are easy. Words and thoughts are free. All one needs to do is to say, "We need to do this!" It's the Ways and Means that are hard and without which Ends are subject to failure.

I'm an idea man. I can vision with the best of them but I'm keenly aware that my vision (Ends) requires methods and resources. And while it is wrong to squash the creativity of individuals in an organization, it is irresponsible to accept such creativity or, moreover, begin to execute such creativity (Ends), without some dose of reality (Ways and Means). This is akin to presenting a problem without a solution. I'll end with a funny story.