#6 Thursday Think Tank: Principle 2: Establish the Strategy Execution Operating Model

Last Thursday we held our sixth Thursday Think Tank — and it delivered exactly the kind of productive friction that sharpens a framework. A spirited debate about scope and naming, sharp practitioner perspectives from across the village, and a session that clarified something important: getting the foundation right matters more than getting it fast.

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The session also reinforced a lesson we keep relearning: the practitioner instinct is to run to the How before the What and the Why are fully settled. With a principle this foundational, that instinct is even harder to resist — and even more important to discipline. Future sessions will continue to run lean, with more open dialogue and fewer slides, so the full depth of experience in the room can surface.

Thursday Think Tank: Principle 2 — Establish the Strategy Execution Operating Model

Session 6 tackled the question every organization avoids answering clearly: who actually owns strategy execution — and what does that function need to look like?

The Naming Debate

The session's central argument was about scope. Does "operating model" set the right expectation for Principle 2 — or does it inadvertently compete with Principle 4? The group reached a clear consensus: Principle 2 is about establishing the orchestrating function. Principle 4 is about the organizational blueprint that function then designs and optimizes. Related, dependent, but solving different problems. The name needs to reflect that distinction.

What This Principle Must Establish Whatever we call it — Strategy Execution Office, TMO, EPMO, or something else entirely — every organization needs a function that:

• Is established with full C-Suite backing and a single accountable executive who owns strategy execution across the whole enterprise, not just one function

• Unifies the cross-functional village, with clear roles, responsibilities, and handoffs between Finance, Strategy, Architecture, Portfolio Management, and Change Management

• Orchestrates a personalized operating model — built from the inside out, not imported from a consulting boilerplate

• Baselines the leading indicator metrics that reveal where value is being lost or delayed in the execution process

• Builds and continuously refines a multi-year capability improvement roadmap

• Operates as a permanent, continuous function — not a transformation program with an end date

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The Challenges That Derail Organizations

The wrong kind of function already exists. C-Suite commitment erodes. The village resists. The operating model defaults to the discretionary portfolio and ignores the majority of spend. Value is measured too late to act on. And in most organizations today, ownership of strategy execution is fractured across multiple functions — creating competing governance and accountability that falls through the cracks.

That last one, raised by Kevin Darbelnet, is the root cause the others flow from. Consolidating that ownership into one accountable function is the central outcome Principle 2 must deliver.

The Scale Question

One of the most useful threads: this principle has to work for a five-person company and a Fortune 100 organization alike. The function will look very different at different scales — and the language of the principle needs to accommodate that without losing its standards of excellence.

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And if you're not yet a member of the StrategyXF community — this is the kind of conversation we have every week. Come join us.