Level 10 Leaders
Research Summary

The Execution Gap:
What the Research Shows

Compiled from 30 peer-reviewed and industry sources. Updated March 2026.

"The gap between what organisations set out to achieve and what they actually deliver is not a strategy problem. It is an execution problem."

— Michael S. Ashby PhD, Level 10 Leaders
The Scale of the Problem

These are not failure rates for poorly conceived strategies. They describe well-run organisations with competent leadership and sound plans. The failure is almost entirely in execution, not in strategy.

67%
of well-formulated strategies fail to deliver their intended results
Harvard Business Review
60–90%
range of strategy execution failure rates across longitudinal research
The Strategy Institute
40%
of a strategy's potential value is lost to the execution gap
Gartner
Why Strategies Fail: The Top Barriers

Research by ClearPoint Strategy across thousands of organisations identifies the leading causes of execution failure. The top three are all management-layer problems — not strategy problems.

#1
Coordination failure
Failure to coordinate across units as the single greatest execution challenge
30%
#2
Strategy stays at the top
Employees are unaware of their organisation's strategy
95%
#3
No strategic time allocation
Leadership teams spend less than one hour per month on strategy execution
85%
#7
Habit reversion
Execution failures linked to insufficient reinforcement — people revert to old behaviours within weeks
67%
#8
Middle management disconnect
Middle managers cannot name any of the top five strategic objectives
50%
The Behavioural Reality

The gap between what leaders believe is happening and what the data shows is itself a measurement problem.

What people say
"We're too busy to focus on strategy."
What the data shows
76% of employees spend fewer than three hours per week on strategic work — regardless of how busy they report being. The problem is not capacity. It is habit. Source: Quantive

Without reinforcement, teams revert to operational defaults within weeks of any strategic initiative. The self-perception gap is significant. Teams believe they are working on the right things. The data shows they are not.

The Management Capability Factor

The most important finding in the academic literature is also the least acted upon.

Key finding — Bloom, Sadun & Van Reenen · World Management Survey · 11,000+ firms across 34 countries
Differences in management practices account for approximately 30% of total factor productivity differences between firms and countries. Variation in management capability accounts for more of the difference between high-performing and average organisations than strategy, market position, or technology. A capable manager gets 30–50% more from the same people than an incapable one. Same headcount, same strategy, same resources.

The multiplier effect of a good manager — and the subtractor effect of a poor one — is the single largest variable in the execution equation. In most organisations, it is estimated rather than measured.

3×
more likely to achieve above-average growth — execution-aligned organisations vs peers
Source: Gartner
2×
more likely to achieve above-average profitability
Source: Gartner
The Training Gap

The standard response to execution problems is a management development programme. The research on those programmes is equally clear.

45–80%
of training investment is wasted on behaviour that never transfers to the workplace
Source: Gartner / HBR
10–20%
of training investment translates to lasting behaviour change when delivered as a standalone event
Source: World Management Survey research

The failure is not in the content of management training. It is in the model. Event-based training changes what managers know. It does not change what they do. Behaviour change requires spaced practice, reinforcement in the work environment, and accountability that outlasts the training event itself.

The organisations that close the execution gap do not simply invest more in training. They build execution systems: measurement, reinforcement, and support operating continuously, not episodically.

Our Own Data

In early 2026, we ran our Execution Strength Diagnostic with 17 organisations across a range of industries. The results were consistent with the broader research.

18/36
Average execution strength score across all 17 organisations
0%
Organisations scoring in the High band (30–36)
0%
With a consistent, trained approach to accountability conversations
0%
That completed all quarterly targets on time
94%
Of managers unable to name what each direct report did the previous day to advance their top priority

These are not outliers. They represent well-run, growth-oriented businesses across multiple sectors. The execution gap is not a symptom of dysfunction. It is the default condition of organisations that have not built the infrastructure to close it.

The Conclusion

The gap between a strategy and its result is not a mystery. It is a measurement problem. Organisations that treat execution as an operational system — with real-time visibility, continuous capability development, and accountability that runs daily rather than quarterly — consistently outperform those that don't.

The gap is the number worth solving for.
Where does your organisation sit?
The Execution Strength Diagnostic takes 12 minutes. You'll get an immediate score across three dimensions: accountability, coaching quality, and execution visibility.
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Key Sources

Bloom, N., Sadun, R., & Van Reenen, J. (2017). Management as a Technology? Harvard Business School / Stanford GSB / NBER. ssrn.com/abstract=2788794
Bloom, N., & Van Reenen, J. (2010). Why Do Management Practices Differ Across Firms and Countries? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(1), 203–24. aeaweb.org
World Management Survey. worldmanagementsurvey.org · LSE Business Review (2022). lse.ac.uk
ClearPoint Strategy. clearpointstrategy.com · Gartner. gartner.com · Quantive. quantive.com
Harvard Business Review. Why Strategy Execution Unravels. hbr.org

© 2026 Level 10 Leaders · Research updated March 2026 level10leaders.com