Do You Have the Right Talent to Execute Your Business Strategy?

Do You Have the Right Talent to Execute Your Business Strategy?
Organizations that tightly align their strategy with the capabilities of their people consistently outperform their peers. Our organizational alignment research shows that having the right talent to execute your strategy explains 29% of the performance gap between high- and low-performing companies across five critical outcomes:

• Revenue growth
• Profitability
• Leadership effectiveness
• Customer loyalty
• Employee engagement

In terms of performance, talent and strategy are inseparable. Strategy only becomes real when people bring it to life — through the skills they have, the confidence they feel, and the conviction they bring to their work. When those elements are missing, even the most elegant strategy stalls.

That is why strategy execution fails so often. Not because the strategy was flawed, but because the organization lacked the capabilities or commitment required to move it forward. Designing a growth strategy without ensuring your people can — and will — execute it is a costly misuse of time, energy, and leadership attention.

The question is not whether your strategy is sound. The real question is whether your talent is ready, willing, and able to deliver it.

Talent: The Catalyst of Strategy Execution
Every strategic initiative ultimately rises or falls on the collective capability, competencies, and commitment of the people responsible for delivering it. From the executive team to the frontline, talent is the foundation of execution strength. When strategy and talent are misaligned, strategies stall.

Ask yourself how many strategic priorities you have successfully executed that ran counter to your employees’ skills, motivations, or natural strengths. Our strategic clarity research suggests the answer is: very few. Strategies gain traction when they are designed to leverage what people can and want to do, not when they require heroics to compensate for capability gaps or cultural misalignments.

Yet this is where many leadership teams stumble. In the pursuit of growth, executives can become captivated by bold, aspirational objectives that look compelling on paper but ignore the realities of organizational readiness. While ambition is essential, detachment from talent is costly.

Winning strategies stretch the organization without breaking it. They are grounded in a clear-eyed assessment of talent — what exists today, what must be built next, and what must change for execution to succeed.

Examples: Talent to Execute Your Business Strategy Challenges

• Sales Strategy Shift from Hardware to Software as a Service (SaaS)
  A common — and often underestimated — strategic pivot is the move from selling hardware to selling a SaaS model. According to DevSquad, 80% of businesses planned to transition their systems to SaaS in the next 12 months. From a strategic standpoint, the appeal is clear. SaaS delivers more predictable, recurring revenue, improves planning accuracy, and strengthens the ability to fund growth and attract capital. Customers benefit as well, through lower infrastructure costs and greater scalability, flexibility, accessibility, and security.

  The challenge is not the logic of the sales strategy. It is the execution.

  Selling a long-term, subscription-based service that requires ongoing support, continuous updates, and customer success is fundamentally different from selling hardware. The sales playbook shifts from transactional deals to consultative, value-based sales conversations. Revenue depends less on closing and more on retention, expansion, and lifetime value. That demands a very different set of selling skills.

  Too often, organizations underestimate this gap. While the strategy is sound, execution falters because the sales organization is not equipped for the new model. SaaS success requires new capabilities — from solution-selling expertise and customer success integration to revised incentives, processes, and enablement systems. Just as important, it requires salespeople who are motivated by long-term customer outcomes, not one-time transactions.

  A SaaS strategy without the right sales talent, systems, and mindset destined for failure.

• Operational Shift to a Digital Transformation
  Another common — and frequently underestimated — strategic move is digital transformation. At its best, a digital strategy embeds technology across the enterprise to increase efficiency, enhance organizational agility, and unlock new sources of value. The momentum is undeniable. Gartner reports that 91% of organizations are engaged in some form of digital initiative, and 89% have adopted or plan to adopt a digital-first business strategy.

  Again, the strategy is not the problem. Execution is.

  Advanced technologies can dramatically improve how work gets done and how value is delivered to customers. But technology alone does not transform organizations — people do. Digital transformation demands a workforce with digital fluency, the ability to adapt quickly, and the discipline to lead and navigate ongoing change.

  This is where many efforts stall. According to Deloitte, only 44% of organizations say they are prepared for the digital disruption ahead. The gap is not access to technology; it is readiness of talent. Without the skills, mindset, and change leadership required to integrate new tools into everyday work, digital investments fail to deliver their promised returns.

  Digital transformation succeeds when talent readiness keeps pace with technological ambition. Without that alignment, even the most sophisticated digital strategy becomes an expensive experiment rather than a competitive advantage.

The Imperative of Talent Alignment
Our leadership simulation assessment data shows that true strategic alignment comes from the deliberate harmonization of individual capabilities, motivations, and career aspirations with the organization’s strategic priorities.

When talent is aligned, performance accelerates. People understand what matters, see how their strengths contribute, and commit discretionary effort to making the strategy succeed. The result is stronger execution, sustained high performance, and higher levels of employee engagement.

When talent is misaligned, the opposite occurs. Even well-conceived strategies fragment in execution. Frustration rises as employees struggle to deliver outcomes they are not equipped or motivated to achieve. Energy is wasted, accountability erodes, and engagement declines.

In the end, strategy does not fail in the boardroom. It fails — or succeeds — in the daily decisions and behaviors of your people. Aligning talent to strategy is how strategic intent becomes strategic impact.

10 Questions to Test If You Have the Right Talent to Execute Your Business Strategy

Having the right talent to execute your business strategy takes a purposeful talent management strategy with the discipline and rhythm to match the strategic direction.  Here are 10 questions to help test if you have the talent to execute your business strategy.  Any that do not rate as a strong “YES” should be shored up before moving forward.

1. My company consistently hires, rewards, and promotes employees that help achieve the company’s strategy.
2. My company retains the majority top talent who are critical to our future success.
3. Employees in my company have the necessary skills, knowledge, and motivation to successfully execute our strategy.
4. The quality of talent within my company gives us a competitive edge.
5. Employees in my company have access to the resources required to do their job.
6. People in my company make the extra effort in their jobs.
7. 75% or more of my company’s teams meet their performance goals.
8. My company consistently assesses employees against the desired skills, knowledge, and attitudes to execute our strategic plans.
9. My company’s employees respond positively to changes required to remain competitive.
10. My company promotes a growth mindset of experimentation, learning, reflection, and development.

The Bottom Line
Differentiated talent that is aligned with your strategy matters. A strong strategy may define a clear and compelling path to meaningful outcomes, but without the skills, mindsets, and motivations to travel that path, execution quickly falters. This is how promising strategies devolve into stalled initiatives and change fatigue. You know you are on the right track when strategy and talent reinforce one another — each strengthening the other in a truly symbiotic relationship that drives sustained results.

To learn more about having the right talent to execute your business strategy, download The 3 Key Ingredients for Talent Management Success

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.