The most frequently quoted stat in management—"70 to 90% of strategies fail during implementation"—lacks a reliable source. Yet almost every company knows the feeling: a strategy is approved, presented, and six months later, nobody talks about it. We looked at what the research actually says.
Where the 90% Figure Came From
In 2015, two academics, Carlos Cândido and Sérgio Santos, asked a simple question: how many strategies actually fail? They traced the original sources behind the famous 50 to 90% estimates and uncovered an uncomfortable truth. Most of those numbers are based on outdated, piecemeal, or non-existent data. In their view, the true failure rate remains unknown.
However, this brings little comfort. It simply means the problem deserves more honest numbers:
According to PMI, only 56% of strategic initiatives achieve their original goals. Just 9% of organizations are rated as excellent in execution.²
According to a study by Bridges Business Consultancy, 48% of companies fail to achieve even half of their strategic goals. Only 7% of leaders consider their company excellent at implementation.
Donald Sull of MIT states that two-thirds to three-quarters of large organizations struggle with strategy execution.
You don't need a catastrophic 90% figure to be concerned. Imagine if only half of your commercial contracts actually worked out.
Where Strategy Actually Dies
Donald Sull's team surveyed nearly 8,000 managers from more than 250 companies to find out what destroys execution. The result is five widespread myths. They are worth reviewing because most companies try to fix the wrong problem.
Cascading goals isn't enough. Companies generally handle vertical alignment well: goals flow down from leadership and get fulfilled. The real issue is horizontal. According to managers, promises made by colleagues in other departments cannot be relied upon. Strategy doesn't die between hierarchical floors—it dies between departments.
Sticking to the plan isn't a virtue. Markets change faster than annual planning cycles. Companies that master execution reallocate people and money based on what is working. The rest continue executing a plan that has long ceased to make sense.
Communication doesn't equal understanding. Executive leadership talks about strategy constantly, but the message gets diluted and altered along the way. The result: only half of middle managers could name even one of their company's top five priorities.
A performance culture won't save execution. When a company rewards only met targets, people stop setting ambitious goals and stop helping each other. Execution requires rewarding collaboration and courage as well.
You can't manage it top-down. A large portion of decisions that determine a strategy's fate are made far away from the executive boardroom. They are made by middle managers and front-line staff. If they merely received the strategy as an order, they will execute it poorly.
In addition, two issues repeatedly appear in practice: companies launch too many initiatives at once, diluting capacity in multitasking; and they invest significantly more time and money into formulating strategy than into delivering it.
What It Costs You
PMI quantified the loss from poor execution at $109 million for every $1 billion invested in projects and programs. Projects aligned with strategy succeed 71% of the time, while unaligned ones succeed only 48% of the time.
Worse is the toll that doesn't fit into a spreadsheet. A company that repeatedly announces a new direction without following through breeds cynical employees. By the third "new beginning," people simply nod and wait for it to pass. Every subsequent attempt becomes more expensive because you first have to break through the distrust you created yourself.
What to Do About It
Six principles emerge from research and practical experience. None of them are complex. The hard part is sticking with them for longer than a single quarter.
Plan implementation during strategy formulation. Approve owners, capacity, and budget for execution alongside the strategy, not a year later. A strategy without allocated people is a wish.
Cut back. Five initiatives with clear owners beat twenty initiatives on a slide. Prioritization means consciously choosing not to do something important.
Measure execution as rigorously as financial results. The logic behind the balanced scorecard or OKRs remains unchanged: translate strategy into a small number of measurable goals and review them regularly.
Build horizontal coordination. Establish mechanisms to ensure departments deliver on promises to one another: cross-departmental goals, escalation rules, and shared reviews.
Measure understanding of communication, not just email volume. Ask ten managers for the company's top three priorities. If you hear ten different answers, you have a clear answer yourself.
Make middle managers co-creators. Someone who helped formulate the strategy knows how to translate it for their team. Someone who received it via email will simply forward it.
Conclusion
Strategy rarely fails because it was poorly conceived. It fails because no one translates it into daily decisions regarding people, money, and priorities. You cannot control the market. You can control this.
A small test to start: Ask three colleagues tomorrow what your company's top three priorities are. The result will tell you more than most strategy reports.