I came across something in a Clinic Mastery (https://www.clinicmastery.com/) email recently that really resonated.
They cited a Harvard Business School study finding that 67% of well-formulated strategies fail – not because the strategy was wrong, but because of poor execution. The challenge isn’t a shortage of good ideas. It’s that good ideas rarely get fully implemented.
Systems started but not finished. Initiatives that lose momentum after a few weeks. Teams unsure how to follow through. Leaders constantly introducing “the next thing.”
Sound familiar?
So I found myself asking a different question. Not what stops execution, but who stops execution. Because in my experience, the gap between a great idea and a great result almost always comes down to how we’re being, not what we know.
This is something I’ve been exploring through the Being Framework, developed by Ashkan Tashvir and outlined in his books Being and Human Being. It’s a powerful model for understanding how our inner world drives our outer results.
When it comes to strategy execution, three ways of being tend to make or break us.
Commitment is being dedicated to a promise or cause that you care about more than anything that may stand in the way. A healthy relationship with commitment means you’re all in until the outcome is fulfilled – prioritising consistently, without giving up. Ask yourself honestly: when things get uncomfortable, do you stay the course, or do you quietly find reasons to move on?
Accountability is assuming full ownership for what you and your team have agreed to, regardless of circumstances. A healthy relationship with accountability means your word can be counted on fully, and you’re willing to be held to account by others. The telling question here isn’t whether you set expectations – it’s whether you genuinely own them when things don’t go to plan.
Persistence is living from the viewpoint that you will stay the course despite difficulties and setbacks. A healthy relationship with persistence means you refuse to give up easily, staying focused even when circumstances feel daunting. It’s worth reflecting on how quickly discouragement sets in when a new initiative hits its first real obstacle.
Here’s the thing. You can have the best strategy in the room. But if commitment is fragile, accountability is vague, and persistence runs dry the moment things get hard, execution will always fall short.
Growth doesn’t come from better ideas. It comes from the people committed to seeing them through.
The definitions referenced in this article are drawn from Ashkan Tashvir’s Human Being (Engenesis Publications, 2021), ‘decoding the fundamental qualities that drive our decisions, behaviours and results’. Discover more about the Being Framework here: https://beingprofile.com/