In an interview, I asked De Sole to comment on what he considered his most important achievement at Gucci. His answer:
We made fashion a real business. We were tougher. We were more competitive. We relaunched the company but we also helped to change the universe of fashion. It used to be dominated by small, private, family-run companies that often weren't profitable. It took us several years to get there, but we showed that you could make a lot of money in fashion.
De Sole and Ford didn't do that through a few grand gestures. They did it through a thorough understanding of the industry, a coherent idea of what they wanted Gucci to be, and a frenetic but disciplined march through every activity that needed to be rebuilt and brought into line. “Like everything in life,” De Sole said, “it was a lot of little things. We were very aggressive in establishing priorities, and needed to act decisively, quickly.”
Many people believe a strategist's primary job is thinking. It isn't. The number-one job is setting an agenda and putting in place the organization to carry it out. “Some companies have great strategies and do a lot of talking,” said De Sole, “but they don't get it done. I follow through. I call my managers all the time to make sure they have executed what they said they would do.”
Every year, early in the term, someone in class always wants to engage the group in a discussion about what's more important: strategy or execution? In my view, it's a false dichotomy, a wrongheaded debate that they themselves have to resolve, and I let them have their go at it. I always bring that discussion up again at the end of the Gucci case, asking, “What here is strategy?” “What is execution?” “Where does one end and the other begin?” Often there isn't a clear answer — and maybe that's as it should be. What could be more desirable than a well-conceived strategy that flows without a ripple into execution?
Thinking of strategy as a system of value creation, rich in organizational detail and driven by purpose, underscores the point. It's the bridge between lofty ideas and action. But while it's easy to see it in companies like Gucci or IKEA, when all the details are laid out in front of you, I know from working with thousands of organizations just how rare it is to find a carefully honed system that really delivers.
The problems often begin right at the start. If leaders lack a clear idea about what they want their businesses to be, they cannot build coherent systems of value creation because they don't know what they should be designed to do exactly or how their success should be measured. That leaves them to fiddle at the margins of success with generically good practices such as “state of the art” sales management approaches or Total Quality Management. These may be helpful, but they're not what will help you find an edge and live on it.
You and every leader of a company must ask yourself whether your strategy is a real system of value creation — a clearly defined purpose tightly backed by a set of mutually reinforcing parts.
If not, it's time to build one. That's the job to be tackled next.
In an interview, I asked De Sole to comment on what he considered his most important achievement at Gucci. His answer:
We made fashion a real business. We were tougher. We were more competitive. We relaunched the company but we also helped to change the universe of fashion. It used to be dominated by small, private, family-run companies that often weren't profitable. It took us several years to get there, but we showed that you could make a lot of money in fashion.
De Sole and Ford didn't do that through a few grand gestures. They did it through a thorough understanding of the industry, a coherent idea of what they wanted Gucci to be, and a frenetic but disciplined march through every activity that needed to be rebuilt and brought into line. “Like everything in life,” De Sole said, “it was a lot of little things. We were very aggressive in establishing priorities, and needed to act decisively, quickly.”
Many people believe a strategist's primary job is thinking. It isn't. The number-one job is setting an agenda and putting in place the organization to carry it out. “Some companies have great strategies and do a lot of talking,” said De Sole, “but they don't get it done. I follow through. I call my managers all the time to make sure they have executed what they said they would do.”
Every year, early in the term, someone in class always wants to engage the group in a discussion about what's more important: strategy or execution? In my view, it's a false dichotomy, a wrongheaded debate that they themselves have to resolve, and I let them have their go at it. I always bring that discussion up again at the end of the Gucci case, asking, “What here is strategy?” “What is execution?” “Where does one end and the other begin?” Often there isn't a clear answer — and maybe that's as it should be. What could be more desirable than a well-conceived strategy that flows without a ripple into execution?
Thinking of strategy as a system of value creation, rich in organizational detail and driven by purpose, underscores the point. It's the bridge between lofty ideas and action. But while it's easy to see it in companies like Gucci or IKEA, when all the details are laid out in front of you, I know from working with thousands of organizations just how rare it is to find a carefully honed system that really delivers.
The problems often begin right at the start. If leaders lack a clear idea about what they want their businesses to be, they cannot build coherent systems of value creation because they don't know what they should be designed to do exactly or how their success should be measured. That leaves them to fiddle at the margins of success with generically good practices such as “state of the art” sales management approaches or Total Quality Management. These may be helpful, but they're not what will help you find an edge and live on it.
You and every leader of a company must ask yourself whether your strategy is a real system of value creation — a clearly defined purpose tightly backed by a set of mutually reinforcing parts.
If not, it's time to build one. That's the job to be tackled next.
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