Are We Actually Set Up to Execute What We Say Matters?

Everyone thinks they need another strategy workshop.

Another offsite. Another reset. Another beautifully sanitised deck explaining how this year we will align, transform, optimise and unlock growth.

Most of them don’t.

What they actually need is to fix how work moves through the business, because strategy is rarely the real problem.

And before anyone thinks I’m talking about one specific client (or I am talking about you), relax. I’m not. This comes from at least 20-30 retailers I’ve spoken to in the past six months. Different sectors, different leadership teams, same movie. Just different actors.

Every leader will tell you there is a clear focus for FY26/27.

Then, usually within five minutes, they’ll proudly show you the 83 different projects designed to achieve it. Usually under 5 strategic objectives. And I know from what they did last year this is the same movie…..

• Plus BAU

• Plus the transformation programme.

• Plus the AI initiative.

• Plus the cost-out programme.

• Plus the “quick win” someone promised the Board in Q3 and everyone forgot to kill.

And somehow all of this is meant to land flawlessly while headcount has been reduced, because we are anticipating the elegant efficiencies of a project that either never started, never finished, or quietly morphed into something else before everyone got distracted by the next shiny thing.

I’ve done it. I’ve probably still done it. Most leaders I know swear they don’t do it.

They do.

Because business is messy and many things can be true at once.

There may genuinely be 83 projects required to move the business forward. Costs are rising, customers are changing, margins are tighter and if we all sit around waiting for perfect conditions there may not be a business left to save.

That part is true. But somewhere between strategic intent and operational reality, most businesses lose the plot.

Not because the strategy is bad. Because the business no longer moves as one.

That’s the problem.

Same focus. Same language. Same direction.

Sounds simple. Rarely is.

We talk endlessly about innovation, customer experience and transformation, but when you actually walk store networks, visit support offices, sit in leadership sessions or spend five minutes with the people doing the real work, the same issues keep showing up.

• People don’t believe the plan.

• People don’t trust all the players.

• People have no idea what you’re talking about today.

• People literally do not have the capacity.

• People don’t really understand the customer.

That’s not strategy. That’s friction.

And friction is where performance goes to die.

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Let’s start with the first one.

People don’t believe the plan because the strategic objectives are often so convoluted or generic or sanitised they could apply to absolutely any business wanting to apply a word salad.

• Delivering world-leading excellence through customer-led transformation and operational optimisation.

• Driving sales through a cohesive and well-orchestrated omni-channel customer-led execution of xyz.

• To drive customer retention through value-led execution.

Magnificent. No one knows what that means.

Then the world shifts. Fuel jumps. Cost of living bites harder. Customers change behaviour overnight. The business has to react fast.

But the strategic language remains untouched, like it was handed down on stone tablets during a leadership retreat in Queenstown. There is no thread between what is happening in the market and what the business says matters.

Or worse, the budget and targets are so disconnected from operational reality that everyone quietly knows we are playing corporate make-believe.

That is when belief disappears.

And when nobody believes the plan is possible, they stop behaving like it matters.

Then there’s trust.

This one gets awkward because it usually starts at the top.

Visionary leadership is wonderful, until it becomes so far removed from operational reality that we are designing Fifth Avenue solutions for businesses operating in regional New Zealand.

Industrial-grade concepts for retail in London or New York that look fantastic on a keynote slide and absolutely collapse the moment someone tries to make them work in Hamilton.

It becomes all aesthetics and no workability.

Then there is the Kool-Aid Collaboration (no one actually understands what you are talking about).

Someone starts with a genuinely good idea. A little baby thoroughbred of a concept.

Then everyone adds their bit. Another stakeholder. Another workshop. Another “what if we also…” then others drink the Kool-Aid.

By the end, it’s a camel with zebra legs and the brain of a tortoise.

Technically alive. Completely useless.

We’ve all lived this.

I was once asked by a Board and CEO to go into a room (as a member of the ELT), devise the solution, then come back and do the big ta-da reveal.

And I did it, because I was younger and less ballsy than I should have been to say NO – that won’t work. I knew it wouldn’t but as I suggested this a few times, they argued back, isn’t that what we paid the big bucks to get your for?

It didn’t stick. Of course it didn’t. Change imposed is usually change resisted.

Because no single person has the answer. People need to be part of the change, not just handed the answer like it arrived from the retail gods. But also it isn't decision by committee.

Then we get to language, which sounds small until you realise it is actually everything.

People in businesses have too many tabs open. Their jobs, their teams, their families, life, money, school pick-up, whatever fresh chaos Tuesday has delivered.

They need shortcuts. Words that anchor meaning.

Instead, many businesses treat language like a hobby.

New names. New programmes. New terms of reference. New ways of working. Every second Tuesday.

Then leaders wonder why nobody knows what is happening.

The rule of seven exists for a reason. People need to hear the same thing over and over before they actually get it.

Communication is not sending the email. Communication is when behaviour changes. That’s the test.

Capacity is the next lie we tell ourselves.

We implement improvements, then immediately remove the people needed to make those improvements get delivered, embedded and then work.

Post-COVID especially, we loaded so much onto teams, and we never rebalanced the load. Now we act surprised when things started to crack without realising the snowball of workload we have created.

Then when commercial performance dips, we rarely simplify.

We add another check. Another balance. Another form. Another campaign. Another comms update. Head office teams see this first then the stores feel it last.

Because when things go south, apparently the answer is always one more spreadsheet to figure out why.

We keep asking people to run faster while quietly moving the finish line.

And finally, the customer.

This is where retail gets particularly dangerous, because sometimes businesses know exactly who their customer is and choose to ignore them because that customer is not sexy enough.

They become embarrassed by their core customer and start designing for aspiration instead of reality. We’ve seen this play out publicly enough.

When retailers lose sight of the customer who is actually paying the bills and start building for the customer they wish they had, it gets expensive very quickly.

Ponsonby is not the litmus test of New Zealand. Manukau, Lower Hutt, Gisborne, Hamilton and Christchurch are far better indicators.

And respectfully, your CEO’s partner is also probably not your target customer.

When leadership drifts too far from customer truth, it is never just a brand problem. It becomes a commercial problem. Customer understanding cannot be driven by what feels right in head office Auckland.

If your strategy only works for people exactly like the leadership team, it probably isn’t strategy.

It’s a group project in self-validation.

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As we skip into a new financial year, most businesses are already overloaded.

So before you add another initiative, another transformation stream, another AI programme someone swears will magically reduce cost of doing business, pull out the plan and ask a better question.

What are we actually asking our people to do?

Do they believe it?

Do they understand it?

Do they trust it?

Do they have the capacity for it?

And does it solve something meaningful for the customer?

Because AI will not save bad process.

AI will not fix bad data.

Shit in, shit out still applies. Just faster and more expensively.

Retail AI is not a technology problem. It is a readiness problem.

And strategy is much the same.

Most businesses do not need another grand plan.

• They need alignment.

• Same focus. Same language. Same direction.

And this creates flow.

Because consistency, boring as it sounds, is still one of the most underrated competitive advantages in retail.

And right now, it might be the one that matters most.