Try this test with your senior management team. Ask them, first, what is the customer proposition—the two-minute "pitch" a salesperson would give—that clearly differentiates your products and services in terms that would motivate a customer to buy from you. Then ask what are the key things your company must do superbly well in order to make this pitch real. Finally, ask what are the activities and information flows essential to delivering this level of operational performance.

Don't be surprised if your management team has a hard time answering these questions with any precision or consistency. It's likely that the business has been changing rapidly and your top team has been preoccupied with specific functional responsibilities. There has been no opportunity to step back and take stock. Yet proper answers are vital if performance shortfalls are not to leave promising strategies stranded in the desert of failed execution.

One CEO's experience

The CEO of one company wanted to drive an aggressive new growth strategy, but was concerned that it had wide-ranging implications for what people did day by day and how they were organized. The company operated a national chain of...