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It Looked Great on Paper: How to Translate Strategy Into Everyday Actions
Paperback
Publisher Price: $24.99
ISBN13: 9781613085035
Publisher: Entrepreneur Press
Published: Jan 5 2027
Pages: 178
Weight: 0.54
Height: 0.41 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Most leaders assume strategy falters due to a lack of employee commitment and buy-in. The real culprit is subtler and more destructive: execution drift. It's the slow, invisible separation between what leaders intend and what organizations actually do, fueled by vague direction, competing priorities, and leadership behaviors that quietly undermine alignment. Behavioral scientist and strategy expert Andrea Belk Olson spent decades diagnosing why smart companies with solid strategies still fail to bring them to life. In It Looked Great on Paper, she gives leaders a practical method for translating strategy into the everyday actions that actually move organizations forward. Readers will learn why most strategies quietly fail and the leadership behaviors that accelerate the drift, how to build a Steering Guide, a one-page operating system that aligns daily decisions with strategy, how to close the gap between strategy and execution without adding more meetings or mandates, and how any leader, regardless of title, can create alignment without waiting for permission. For executives, department heads, and leaders at every level who are ready to stop presenting strategy and start living it.
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