Execution and Ways of Working

Execution and Ways of Working define how effort is coordinated and translated into outcomes. In simple terms, this lever determines whether strategy becomes sustained organisational performance.

Execution and Ways of Working form the fourth lever of maintained competitive advantage. They determine how strategy moves through the organisation as coordinated activity.

Strategy may define direction, leadership may reinforce priorities, and culture may shape behaviour, but execution determines how work is actually performed and how outcomes are delivered.

When execution mechanisms are coherent and aligned with strategy, the organisation can translate intent into sustained results. When execution structures fragment effort or create unnecessary friction, strategy becomes difficult to deliver consistently.

Execution and Ways of Working therefore shape how the organisation converts effort into outcomes.

Within the Five Levers framework, execution refers to the mechanisms through which work is organised, coordinated, and delivered.

This includes operating models, governance, decision pathways, and the coordination structures that allow teams and functions to work together.

Many modern organisations organise execution around value streams. A value stream represents the end-to-end set of activities required to deliver value to a customer or stakeholder. Structuring work around value streams helps organisations focus on outcomes rather than isolated functional tasks.

Within value stream operating models, teams may use agile delivery methods to organise day to day work. Agile practices allow teams to iterate, learn, and adjust as conditions evolve. Projects and programmes often exist alongside these structures as interventions designed to introduce new capabilities or resolve structural challenges within value streams.

Execution therefore involves coordinating these mechanisms so that effort across the organisation contributes to shared outcomes.

Effective execution depends on maintaining flow through value streams.

Flow refers to the smooth movement of work from idea to outcome. When flow is strong, work progresses through the organisation with minimal delay or rework. When flow is disrupted, bottlenecks appear, coordination becomes more difficult, and outcomes take longer to achieve.

Organisations often discover that many execution challenges arise from dependencies between value streams. Teams may rely on shared platforms, data services, infrastructure capabilities, or specialist functions.

When these dependencies are poorly understood or poorly managed, they create viscosity that slows delivery. Managing cross value stream coordination therefore becomes an important element of effective execution.

Clear ownership, transparent priorities, and structured coordination mechanisms help organisations maintain flow across complex environments.

Execution requires clear measures of progress and performance.

Many organisations rely heavily on activity metrics such as utilisation, delivery milestones, or project completion rates. While these measures can provide useful information, they do not always reveal whether work is contributing effectively to strategic outcomes.

Within value stream operating models, measurement increasingly focuses on indicators related to flow, outcomes, and customer value. These may include measures such as cycle time, lead time, throughput, quality, and value delivered.

These metrics help organisations understand whether execution mechanisms are enabling progress or increasing viscosity.

Measurement therefore plays an essential role in identifying where viscosity is building within execution structures.

Execution mechanisms have a direct impact on organisational viscosity.

When governance structures become too complex, decision pathways multiply, or coordination mechanisms are unclear, work slows as it moves through the organisation. Teams may spend more time navigating processes than delivering outcomes.

Dependencies between teams and value streams can further increase friction when responsibilities are unclear or coordination structures are weak.

Over time the organisation becomes harder to move than leadership expects. Strategic initiatives take longer to deliver and improvement efforts lose momentum.

Execution structures designed around clear value streams, transparent priorities, and effective coordination help reduce this viscosity and support sustained delivery.

Within the Five Lever framework, execution and ways of working operate alongside strategy, leadership, culture, and strategic architecture.

Strategy defines the direction and competitive position of the organisation.

Leadership reinforces that direction through behaviour and priorities.

Culture shapes how individuals interpret those signals.

Execution and Ways of Working translate priorities into coordinated activity across the organisation.

Strategic architecture provides the technological and structural foundations that allow these activities to evolve and adapt.

Maintained competitive advantage emerges when these levers operate together in a coherent system.

In The Fifth Lever, execution challenges become visible as MontaraTech attempts to translate strategic intent into operational progress.

Teams across the organisation work hard, yet initiatives struggle to maintain momentum. Dependencies between systems and teams create delays, governance structures multiply, and coordination becomes increasingly difficult.

Through Sara’s work with the leadership group, the organisation begins to examine how its operating model, value streams, and delivery mechanisms shape the flow of work across the enterprise.

The experience illustrates an important principle. Execution is not simply about effort or discipline. It is about designing ways of working that allow strategy to move through the organisation as sustained outcomes.