\u201cFor a CEO, this makes sequencing a strategic obligation. A new market may require stronger treasury capacity before a larger sales force. A promising acquisition may demand management depth before additional debt.\u201d <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That distinction begins with recognising that a strategic plan and an organisational strategy are not necessarily the same thing. The plan records intentions. Budgets, appointments, incentives and executive decisions reveal the choices the business actually makes. When the two diverge, employees quickly learn which to follow.\n<\/p>\n A business may promise superior service while rewarding salespeople solely for volume. It may announce digital transformation while denying operational teams the authority to redesign processes. It may demand innovation while treating every unsuccessful experiment as evidence of incompetence. Employees adapt to these contradictions. Eventually, management describes the resulting behaviour as a \u201cculture problem\u201d, overlooking its own role in creating it.<\/p>\n The CEO\u2019s first responsibility is therefore to make choices clear enough to govern action. Which customers will the business serve exceptionally well? What advantage can it defend? What must it stop doing? What level of risk can its finances and management capacity absorb?\n<\/p>\n \u201cMarket leadership\u201d answers none of these questions. Neither does a revenue target unsupported by a credible account of margins, cash requirements and delivery capacity. Growth that consumes liquidity faster than the business can replenish it may bring an enterprise closer to distress even as reported revenue rises.\n<\/p>\n Nigerian corporate experience should encourage humility here. NITEL\u2019s repeated rescue efforts exposed the distance between changing an enterprise\u2019s ownership or structure and rebuilding its operating capacity. Transactions can create opportunities for renewal. They cannot, by themselves, supply competent management, investment discipline or customer confidence.\n<\/p>\n Bank PHB\u2019s experience, understood within the wider banking crisis, offers another caution against confusing scale with strength. Expansion increases the burden on governance and risk management. When those capabilities lag, growth can magnify vulnerabilities that a smaller operation could survive. The board should ask whether the institution is becoming stronger as it becomes larger.\n<\/p>\n For a CEO, this makes sequencing a strategic obligation. A new market may require stronger treasury capacity before a larger sales force. A promising acquisition may demand management depth before additional debt. Technology spending may achieve little until processes and decision rights are clarified. The right initiative, undertaken before the business can support it, can become the wrong investment.<\/p>\n Execution also requires a more demanding relationship with evidence. Leaders need information early enough to act, including information that challenges their assumptions. Yet, organisations frequently filter bad news as it travels upwards. A delayed project becomes \u201csubstantially on track\u201d; a dissatisfied customer becomes \u201can isolated case\u201d; a cash problem becomes \u201ca timing issue\u201d.\n<\/p>\n The CEO helps determine whether that filtering becomes routine. When unwelcome findings provoke humiliation, people learn to manage the leader\u2019s emotions before managing the business. Reporting becomes theatre. The executive committee receives reassurance precisely when it needs warning.\n<\/p>\n Accountability must therefore work in both directions. Managers should answer for delivery. Leaders should answer for conflicting priorities, inadequate resources and decisions left unresolved. Demanding ownership from people who lack authority is a convenient way to distribute blame.\n<\/p>\n The same honesty must govern withdrawal. Some projects survive because abandoning them would embarrass their sponsors. Past expenditure becomes an argument for further spending; executive prestige claims corporate cash. A disciplined CEO asks what the business would choose today, knowing what it now knows. Stopping deserves scrutiny, but continuing should never escape it.\n<\/p>\n Ultimately, strategic credibility accumulates through repeated decisions. It grows when the budget reflects declared priorities, when a high performer faces consequences for destructive conduct, when evidence changes an investment decision, and when the board examines underlying capability alongside headline results.<\/p>\n These choices are less conspicuous than a strategy launch. They are also more consequential.\n<\/p>\n Before commissioning another retreat, a CEO should examine the organisation\u2019s recent spending, senior appointments and toughest decisions. Taken together, they reveal the strategy already in operation. The leadership task is to ensure that it is the one the business needs.\n<\/p>\n Dakuku Peterside is a management and leadership turnaround expert.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Source: <\/p>\n A chief executive can approve a new strategy in the morning and undermine it before the close of business: Retain an executive who obstructs collaboration, approve an expansion the balance… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Related News<\/h4>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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