I remember walking into a strategy retreat in Mbale, fully prepared to impress the room with elegant frameworks, clean slides, and a sharp narrative on growth. I even laughed at myself later, because within thirty minutes, it was clear none of that mattered.
The room was tense, cameras off for those online. During my public speaking training, I learned to always start in unexpected way. I opened with a question: “What will you stop doing to make this strategy work?” No one replied to me. It was a long silence.
That is when I realised the fact that strategy execution dies in overloaded teams, not in bad plans or weak markets. It dies in people who are simply too tired to carry one more thing. People who lack self-drive and initiative to take decisions and lead.
It was a Thursday afternoon, 2:15 pm. The executive team had just approved a three-year growth strategy. It was ambitious and everyone nodded. Then I asked the second question, “What will you stop doing to deepen strategy execution focus?”
One EXCO member smiled and said, “We will optimise.” Another said, “We will multitask better.” Then the operations manager paused and said, “With that, we will fail.” You could feel the shift. Slight discomfort and some irritation.
But you are thinking it too, aren’t you? How many strategic priorities has your team added this year without removing anything? How many transformation projects are sitting on top of already stretched teams? And quietly, what have your people chosen to ignore just to survive the week?
In my assessment, strategy dies in overloaded teams. You find people have a lot of day-to-day tasks to execute that are “whirlwind” for a lack of a better word.
During strategy retreats, I ask leaders to imagine carrying five jerrycans of water up a hill. Then I quietly add three more without telling them. What happens? They don’t become stronger, they drop some jerrycans halfway. Usually, the ones no one is watching. That is your strategy execution.
The visible work gets done, the urgent emails, the daily operations. The “boss is watching” tasks. The strategy? It becomes the jerrycan left behind in the bushes. In that Mbale session, I introduced a simple exercise. I call it the Stop - Start - Sustain Reset.
I asked each executive to write three things:
a) What must we stop immediately to create capacity?
b) What must we start to deliver strategy?
c) What must we sustain because it works?
The tension usually increases. During the retreat, one senior manager looked at me and said, “If we stop some of these reports, audit will ask questions.” Another said, “If we drop this committee, the board may not like it.” This brings me to the major strategy execution challenge, whereby the team no longer has a strategy problem, but a courage one.
Weak teams add while strong teams subtract. I told them that “You are not overloaded because of the market. You are overloaded because you refuse to choose.” That hit hard. Within forty minutes, something changed.
They identified 17 recurring activities that added little value. Weekly reports no one read, meetings held out of habit and approvals that existed to protect egos, not manage risk. And suddenly, space appeared.
Energy returned to the room. Conversations became sharper. People leaned forward. Because for the first time, the strategy felt possible. Strategy dies in overloaded teams, but it lives in focused ones.
You are probably proud of your team’s resilience. Their ability to “handle pressure.” But resilience is often misread. It is not strength. It is quiet compromise. It is your people choosing what to ignore without telling you.
Great teams behave differently. They protect focus aggressively, say no early, remove work before adding new work and understand that every new priority is a tax on execution.
Recognition and confidence come when your team sees progress, not just plans. Accomplishment increases when effort is focused, not scattered. Results improve when strategy is given space to breathe. And leadership becomes enjoyable again when your people are not constantly drowning. I have seen this pattern across industries, from banks to manufacturing firms to public institutions.
The leaders who win are not the ones with the best strategies. They are the ones who create capacity to execute. If you keep adding priorities, your strategy will quietly fail. If you force trade-offs, your strategy will begin to live.
As I closed that session, I told the team one line they still quote back to me: “If everything matters, nothing moves.” So here is your test.
In your next leadership meeting, ask these three questions and do not move on until you get honest answers:
1. What will we stop this quarter to create real execution capacity?
2. Which strategic priorities are we pretending to deliver but are quietly ignored?
3. Where are we overloading our best people and calling it performance?
Until you answer them truthfully, your strategy is just another document. And you already know where those end up.
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