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Why do so many organisations create great strategies but fail to achieve the results they planned?

In this episode of the Enterprise Excellence Podcast, Brad Jeavons speaks with Evan Campbell, strategy execution expert and author of Adapt to Win, about why organisations struggle with strategy execution, strategy deployment, organisational alignment and strategic adaptability.

Evan introduces the concept of strategy decay—the gradual loss of focus, alignment and momentum that occurs when an organisation creates a strategy but fails to continually deploy, reinforce, measure and adapt it.

With a career spanning the United States Army, technology, software development, entrepreneurship, agile transformation and business consulting, Evan brings a unique systems-thinking perspective to the challenge of helping organisations turn strategy into measurable results.

In this episode, we discuss:

Why up to 70% of organisations struggle to achieve their strategic objectives
 What strategy decay is and why it happens
 The difference between strategy development and strategy execution
 Why a strategy PowerPoint presentation is not strategy deployment
 How organisations lose focus and alignment over time
 Why completing more projects does not necessarily create more value
 How OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) can improve strategic alignment
 The importance of combining top-down strategic direction with bottom-up engagement
 How Lean Portfolio Management helps organisations prioritise high-value work
 Why leaders need to stop or kill projects that are no longer delivering strategic value
 The dangers of rigid, traditional project management
 How organisations can develop strategic adaptability
 Why leadership teams often have false alignment around their strategy
 Three practical actions CEOs and senior leaders can take to improve strategy execution

One of the biggest lessons from this conversation is simple:

Creating a strategy is only the beginning.

For strategy to succeed, leaders must create clarity around where the organisation will play, how it will win and what outcomes matter most. That strategy then needs to be continuously deployed, measured and adapted as the business environment changes.

If you're a CEO, executive, business leader, strategy professional, transformation leader, lean practitioner, agile coach or enterprise excellence professional, this episode provides practical insights into improving business strategy, strategy deployment, organisational performance and strategic execution.

About Evan Campbell

Evan Campbell is an experienced technology and business leader specialising in strategy execution, strategic adaptability, OKRs and lean portfolio management.

His career has included serving as an Airborne Ranger and Green Beret in the United States Army, working in telecommunications and technology, co-founding successful businesses, leading agile and lean transformations and helping organisations around the world improve how they execute strategy.

Evan is also the author of Adapt to Win, a book exploring how organisations can overcome strategy decay and build the capabilities needed to adapt and thrive in an increasingly complex world.

🎙️ Listen to the Enterprise Excellence Podcast:
https://enterpriseexcellencegroup.com.au/enterprise-excellence-podcast/

📺 Watch more Enterprise Excellence Podcast episodes:
 https://www.youtube.com/@enterpriseexcellencepodcas6777

📖 Learn more about Evan Campbell and Adapt to Win:
 https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast/making-strategy-real-evan-campbell

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 – Introduction
 01:11 – Evan Campbell's journey from Green Beret to business leader
 05:12 – Becoming a systems thinker
 07:20 – Why Evan wrote Adapt to Win
 10:22 – What is strategy decay?
 13:19 – Why organisations struggle with strategy deployment
 15:31 – The importance of strategic alignment
 17:46 – Why strategy should not just be a collection of projects
 22:28 – OKRs vs traditional management by objectives
 25:50 – Lean Portfolio Management and stopping low-value projects
 27:20 – Strategic adaptability and responding to change
 30:01 – Three actions leaders can take to improve strategy execution
 36:07 – Where to learn more about Evan Campbell and Adapt to Win

Subscribe to the Enterprise Excellence Podcast for conversations with leading experts, CEOs, practitioners and thought leaders exploring how organisations can create a better future through enterprise excellence, continuous improvement, leadership, strategy and organisational transformation.

#StrategyExecution #BusinessStrategy #OKRs #Leadership #EnterpriseExcellence #LeanManagement #StrategyDeployment #OrganisationalExcellence #BusinessTransformation #ContinuousImprovement #LeanPortfolioManagement #StrategicLeadership

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Are you a senior leader struggling with executive burnout, an overloaded calendar, and a team that depends on you for everything?
You are not alone — and you do not have to walk away from the career you love.

In this episode, Brad Jeavons sits down with Michelle Thomas, a global innovation and mining executive with 27 years of experience across oil and gas, geophysics and the resources industry.
Michelle shares the exact steps she took to recover from executive burnout and build a high performance innovation team so strong it kept running without her for an entire month.

What you will learn:
How to spot the early warning signs of leadership burnout before it escalates
Why your calendar is the key to unlocking leadership performance and team wellbeing
How to build meeting rhythms and operating cadence that eliminate chaos and create clarity
How to use Leader Standard Work (LSW) and the Week in the Life Of (WILO) to structure your time
How the Stop Start Keep framework helps you ruthlessly prioritise high value work
Why meaningful delegation is the leadership skill that unlocks team autonomy and growth
How the leadership shadow you cast every day shapes team culture and psychological safety
How to build a self-sustaining high performance team that thrives without you

Essential listening for:
Senior executives and directors experiencing burnout and calendar overload
Women in leadership navigating mid to long term career challenges and overwhelm
Innovation, technical and operations leaders in complex global organisations
HR, organisational development and continuous improvement professionals
Leaders in mining, resources, oil and gas and energy sectors

Brad's two key takeaways:

Connecting leadership change to a meaningful personal purpose is what makes it sustainable

A team system that keeps running when the leader is absent is the ultimate measure of great leadership

Free Time Optimisation Program and Transformation Resources: our new website is live! https://eexg.com.au/
#leadership  #WeekInTheLifeOf #wilo  #stop #planning  #operatingsystem  #psychologicalsafety  #leadership #executive #Recovery #continuousimprovement  #innovationleadership  #highperformanceteams  #EnterpriseExcellence #mining 

Subscribe for weekly episodes on leadership development, executive burnout, high performance teams, continuous improvement, business transformation, lean management and enterprise excellence.

The Enterprise Excellence Podcast — engaging and aligning everyone to execute continuous improvement and innovation for a better future.
Like, share and subscribe to help other leaders stay focused, rebuild and thrive.

To learn more about what we do, visit https://eexg.com.au/
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Is your business strategy failing to deliver results? In this episode, Brad Jeavons breaks down the Strategy and Cultural Planning System — the essential framework for business leaders who want to build a high-performance culture, drive sustainable productivity growth, and achieve real business transformation.

Drawing on the latest Reserve Bank of Australia productivity data from June 2026 and the new book Leading Enterprise Excellence by Butterworth, Jeavons, Ray and Dargan, Brad reveals why most strategic planning fails and what to do instead.

In this episode you will learn why Australian productivity is in negative territory and what leaders must do now, the two levers of organisational productivity — optimisation and innovation — and how to build a strategic planning system that actually executes. Brad also covers how to define your culture through ideal leadership behaviours, how to use SWOT analysis and the XY Matrix for strategic focus and core competency development, and how to align strategy and culture from the boardroom to the frontline.

This episode is essential listening for CEOs, senior leaders, operations managers, continuous improvement practitioners, HR and organisational development professionals, and anyone leading business transformation in Australian or global organisations.

Coming up in this series: Strategy and Behaviour Deployment, plus real-world examples from Michelle Thomas of BHP and Matt Oakley of Farah.

Download free Strategic and Cultural Planning templates at theenterpriseexcellencepodcast.com/downloads

Please like, subscribe and share to help other leaders create a better future.

To learn more about what we do, visit https://eexg.com.au/
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Is your organisation struggling with disengaged employees, quality issues, productivity challenges, or failed transformation projects? You're not alone — and there's a better way.

In this solo episode, Brad Jeavons shares the current best-practice framework developed by the Enterprise Excellence Group: a proven 5-step transformation journey that helps organisations build a genuine culture of continuous improvement and innovation at every level.

Brad walks you through each phase of the journey:

1. Assess – Voice of employee & customer, strategic and cultural maturity reviews, and extended value stream mapping
2. Design – Co-creating your culture definition and business operating system with frontline and middle management teams
3. Build – Developing leadership capability to lead culture and systems
4. Embed – Deploying the system into daily work across the organisation
5. Sustain – Annual maturity reviews and continuous improvement of the journey itself

With global employee engagement sitting at just 24% and productivity in decline, Brad makes the case that the cost of not following a structured transformation approach runs into the trillions worldwide. This episode cuts through the noise of silver-bullet solutions and gives you a clear, proven path forward.

Resources mentioned:

• Leading Enterprise Excellence – Butterworth, Jeavons, Ray & Dargan
• Enterprise Excellence Maturity Index
• Download the Enterprise Excellence Transformation Journey and Process Mapping Guide at 👉 https://enterpriseexcellencegroup.com.au/

🎙️ The Enterprise Excellence Podcast explores how to engage and align everyone in an organisation to execute continuous improvement and innovation.

If this episode added value, please share it and leave a like — helping others discover this work is how we create a better future together.

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Episode Summary

In this episode of the Enterprise Excellence Podcast, Brad Jeavons speaks with Chris Warner, author of Flick the Switch and co-author of the award-winning book Why Care.

Chris shares insights from over 30 years in the automotive and mining industries, exploring the powerful connection between psychological wellbeing, leadership, and continuous improvement. Together, they discuss psychological safety, psychosocial hazards, leadership responsibility, systems thinking, and why thriving individuals are essential for creating thriving cultures of improvement.

Whether you're a leader, improvement practitioner, or executive seeking better performance and engagement, this episode provides practical guidance on creating workplaces where people feel safe to contribute, innovate, and thrive.

Key Topics Discussed

• Psychological safety vs psychological health and safety
 • Understanding psychosocial hazards in the workplace
 • Why psychological wellbeing drives continuous improvement
 • Leadership as system architecture
 • Creating psychological capacity for innovation and problem-solving
 • The importance of Go See, one-on-one engagement, and systems thinking
 • Reducing workplace stress through better work design

About Chris Warner

Chris Warner has spent more than three decades leading operational excellence and continuous improvement across automotive and mining industries. He is the author of Flick the Switch, co-author of Why Care, and a passionate advocate for psychological wellbeing in the workplace.

Connect

🌐 Enterprise Excellence Group: https://enterpriseexcellencegroup.com.au

📧 Contact Brad: [email protected]

To learn more about what we do, visit https://eexg.com.au/
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What if the biggest barrier to transformation in your organisation is not a lack of tools, strategy, or resources — but a lack of shared clarity about where you actually are right now?

In Episode 220 of the Enterprise Excellence Podcast, host Brad Jeavons is joined by Stephen Nicoll, founder of The Lean Orange and one of the world's most experienced guides on the journey to enterprise excellence. Stephen led the team at News Corp's Scottish newspaper manufacturing facility to become the first — and only — organisation in the United Kingdom to win the prestigious Shingo Prize. He has since spent decades helping organisations across the globe build cultures of continuous improvement and innovation.

Stephen and Brad explore the foundational concept of shared clarity: why organisations that skip this step almost always underachieve on their transformation ambitions, and how getting it right creates the conditions for everything else to work. Stephen shares the 12-step flow model that The Lean Orange uses with clients, including the critical step zero of building a community of excellence before any formal change work begins. He explains why the best playbooks are built by the people who will use them, how agile sprints make transformation manageable and sustainable, and why leaders who coach key behavioural indicators outperform those who manage key performance indicators.

Two insights from this episode stand out. First, Stephen's challenge to flip the idea ratio: in most organisations, 90% of improvement ideas come from leadership and 10% from frontline workers. The goal is to invert that — and the result is leaders who finally have time to lead. Second, his closing provocation, inspired by a 40-year Lean veteran in California: unplug technology and plug back into people. Real engagement, he argues, is built through conversation, physical presence, and the simple question: "What do you think?"

Key topics covered in this episode:

•       Why shared clarity — not tools or strategy — is the true starting point of excellence

•       How to conduct a benchmarking conversation that reveals what surveys and dashboards miss

•       The 12-step flow model and how to build a playbook your people will actually use

•       Agile sprints: making transformation manageable in the real rhythm of your business

•       KBIs versus KPIs: why coaching behaviour beats managing numbers

•       The 90/10 idea ratio and how to flip it in your favour

•       Why technology can unintentionally de-skill and disengage your people

•       The shift from 'culture' to 'character' — and why it changes what leaders do

Ready to start your excellence journey with clarity? Listen to Episode 220 now and connect with Brad Jeavons on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradjeavons/ or visit the podcast at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1120772/episodes/19266727.

To learn more about what we do, visit https://eexg.com.au/
Thanks for your time, and thanks for helping to create a better future.

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What if the reason your business isn't growing has nothing to do with efficiency — and everything to do with whether you are solving the right problems at all?

 In Episode 219 of the Enterprise Excellence Podcast, Brad Jeavons sits down with Gary Stewart — a former CEO of a Toyota Group company and one of Australia's most experienced systems thinkers — to explore one of the most important and misunderstood distinctions in organisational performance: effectiveness versus efficiency.

Gary brings decades of experience inside the Toyota system to this conversation, and he pulls no punches. While efficiency focuses on the producer — doing things with less waste — effectiveness focuses on the customer: solving the right problems, creating the right outcomes. Both matter, but most organisations are so obsessed with efficiency metrics that they are inadvertently destroying their own effectiveness — and often don't know it, because the metrics they are using are being gamed.

Gary shares two powerful case studies. The first involves a production manager claiming 103% efficiency — a mathematical impossibility that turned out to mask a true gross efficiency of just 50%. The second is a microbiology company on the verge of collapse that, by mapping its perfect system and systematically removing problems, errors, delays, and frustrations, reduced its project timeline from 116 weeks to just 26 weeks — and in the process solved science problems no one had ever solved, creating global patents and a new revenue stream. This is what effectiveness innovation looks like in practice.

The conversation also challenges some deeply held assumptions about Lean, describing it as fundamentally a 'watching the hands' method that can take organisations to 3 or 3.5 out of 10 on the perfect line — but never to 4. The shift required to go further is not a technical one; it is a human one. And that requires leaders to give up command and control in favour of a model that develops the human mind as its primary purpose.

Key topics covered in this episode:

•       The difference between effectiveness innovation (customer-focused, revenue and profit) and efficiency innovation (producer-focused, working capital and cash flow)

•       Campbell's Law: why manipulable targets always get gamed, and how to use absolute benchmarks to expose the truth

•       The microbiology case study: from near-bankruptcy to global patents in three years

•       The factory as a dojo: Toyota's philosophy that the purpose of work is to train the human mind

•       Why Lean is a 'watching the hands' method — and why that limits it to 3 out of 10 on the perfect line

•       Command and control vs the ascending spiral curve: what it really takes to build excellence

•       The QA network: a practical tool for building frontline ownership of quality and system control

•       How to start: study Russell Ackoff, map the perfect system, and teach people how their system fails

If you lead an organisation and you are serious about building something genuinely excellent — not just efficient — this episode will change how you think about performance, leadership, and people development.

Connect with Brad Jeavons: linkedin.com/in/bradjeavons/

Enterprise Excellence Group Podcast: buzzsprout.com/1120772/episodes/19266509

To learn more about what we do, visit https://eexg.com.au/
Thanks for your time, and thanks for helping to create a better future.

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Discover why most organisations focus too heavily on efficiency while missing the deeper architecture required for true enterprise excellence. In this thought-provoking episode, Gary Stewart shares lessons from Toyota Group companies on systems thinking, effectiveness innovation, and why operational excellence starts with developing people and systems — not just processes.

Enterprise Excellence, Systems Thinking, Toyota Production System, Operational Excellence, Innovation, Effectiveness Innovation, Efficiency Innovation, Lean, Productivity, Human Systems, Technical Systems, Russell Ackoff, Deming, Continuous Improvement, Leadership, Organizational Transformation, Manufacturing, Economic Complexity, Business Architecture, Absolute Benchmarks

Gary Stewart joins Brad Jeavons on the Enterprise Excellence Podcast to challenge conventional thinking around innovation, Lean, and operational excellence.

Drawing on decades inside Toyota Group companies including Denso and Aisin, Gary explains why most organizations focus too heavily on efficiency while neglecting the deeper systems architecture required for long-term effectiveness, productivity, and innovation.

The episode explores:

• The “Perfect Line” concept 
• Human systems vs technical systems 
• Effectiveness innovation vs efficiency innovation 
• Systems thinking and Russell Ackoff 
• Why productivity and innovation decline when organisations focus only on efficiency 
• How Toyota Group companies build sustainable enterprise excellence 

This is a thought-provoking conversation for leaders interested in continuous improvement, systems thinking, operational excellence, and long-term organisational transformation.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/6CRhQXgGQhw 

Enterprise Excellence Group: https://enterpriseexcellencegroup.com.au/enterprise-excellence-podcast/

Connect with Brad on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradjeavons/. Call him on 0402 448 445 or email him at [email protected]. 

If you’d like to connect with Mr Gary Stewart, please reach out to us.

• Request Gary Stewart’s worksheet from us through contact us on our website, or email.
• Study Russell Ackoff and Deming 
• Assess whether your organisation focuses too heavily on efficiency over effectiveness 
• Explore how architecture and systems design influence operational performance 
• Evaluate whether your organisation uses absolute or relative benchmarks 
• Reflect on where your organisation sits on the “ascending vs descending spiral” 

To learn more about what we do, visit https://eexg.com.au/
Thanks for your time, and thanks for helping to create a better future.

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#Leadership #Communication #Influence #EmotionalIntelligence #OperationalExcellence #TeamAlignment #Trust #LeadershipDevelopment #PublicSpeaking #EnterpriseExcellence

In this episode, Dr. Laura Sicola shares how leaders can strengthen their ability to influence through voice, vocal delivery, and body language. She unpacks the hidden gap between what we think we communicate and what others actually hear. This conversation provides practical tools to help leaders build trust, align teams, and communicate with greater impact.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/ffUmf5oTOHg

1.     “The gap between what you think you said and what they think they heard is where results are won or lost.”

2.     “It’s not about which is more important—words, voice, or body language—it’s about the alignment between them.” 

3.     “Authenticity is not a synonym for comfort zone—you need to learn to flex.” 

Brad Jeavons:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradjeavons/
Phone: 0402 448 445
Email: [email protected]

Dr. Laura Sicola:
Website: https://laurasicola.com
Book + resources available via website and major platforms (Amazon, Audible, Kindle)

1.     Record a 1-minute video of yourself communicating a key message and review your words, vocal delivery, and body language.

2.     Identify one area (words, vocal, or body language) to improve and focus on that first.

3.     Practice flexing your communication style to better connect with different audiences across your organisation.

4.     Listen to the episode and take the next step—download the first two chapters of Speaking to Influence here: https://laurasicola.com/sti-chapters-1-2-free

To learn more about what we do, visit https://eexg.com.au/
Thanks for your time, and thanks for helping to create a better future.

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Listen now and challenge the way you think about strategy—are you building something truly different, or just slightly better?

#Strategy #CompetitiveAdvantage #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #Innovation #Differentiation #OperationalExcellence #EnterpriseExcellence #AI #MarketPositioning

In this episode, Alex Smith challenges conventional thinking on strategy and explains why most businesses get it wrong. He shares a practical approach to creating true competitive advantage—by focusing on uniqueness, not incremental improvement. This is a must-listen for leaders looking to move beyond “better” and build something truly different.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/6a6KAqi7Tx0 

Enterprise Excellence Group:https://enterpriseexcellencegroup.com.au/podcast 

“The perfect business is one with very high demand and very low supply.” [00:14:00]

“Any attempt to become better than your competitors will only make you more similar to them.” [00:16:00]

“Strategy isn’t about solving customer problems—it’s about creating needs that didn’t exist before.” [00:22:00]

Connect with Brad on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradjeavons/
. Call him on 0402 448 445 or email him at [email protected].

Connect with Alex Smith on LinkedIn and via his website: https://basicarts.org/welcome

1. Identify one area in your business where you are competing on “better” rather than “different.” 
2. Explore what unique value you could create that customers can’t get elsewhere. 
3. Run a small experiment to test a bold, differentiated idea within your current capabilities. 

To learn more about what we do, visit https://enterpriseexcellencegroup.com.au/
Thanks for your time, and thanks for helping to create a better future.

To learn more about what we do, visit https://eexg.com.au/
Thanks for your time, and thanks for helping to create a better future.