Execution Is Exponential

The more stories I hear about how companies succeed or stagnate, the more I realize that it’s extremely common for creative founders (also known as “idea people”) to have a persistent bias towards seeing everything as a strategy problem, even when it’s really an execution problem.

So when we’re in trouble, we often look for the next big idea that will fix everything. We get excited about big narratives that explain where we are, why we’re struggling, and what we need to do differently in order to fix it. We get hyped to embark upon a bold new chapter—only to realize later that our fortunes haven’t changed that much, the team... See more

A lot of times, instead of thinking big, we actually need to think small. Instead of getting hyped about broad narratives that explain our predicament, we need to just buckle down and ask ourselves how we can do what we’re already doing—but much, much better. We need to focus on execution, not strategy.