The best entrepreneurs and executives at fast-growing companies have the ability to move efficiently and profitably from ideation to execution, and then from execution back to ideation and then back to re-focused execution. And they do so regarding all aspects of their businesses -- marketing and sales, operations and finance.
Those entrepreneurs and executives that are less successful often are overly focused on just ideas or just execution rather than on the synergistic relationship between the two -- the great "idea person" we all know that never gets around to actually executing upon an action plan. Those that are focused on just ideas often let their desire for the perfect idea get in the way of the day to day need their businesses often have to implement a less than perfect one, not quickly and rigorously enough subjecting their ideas to the rumble/tumble of the marketplace.
Those that are focused on just execution, while on some levels far more effective than the ideological set , are often too slow to react to changing technological, marketplace or competitive conditions. They also often define their value offerings so narrowly that they miss much of the profit opportunities of their product or service offering.
Classic examples of this include IBM defining themselves as a hardware company in the 1980s as opposed to an information technology solutions company, thereby ceding the software field opportunity to Microsoft. Also, the traditional phone companies in the 1990s failing to leverage their huge telecommunications IP portfolios created a huge profit from emerging marketssthat was filled by mobile and Internet-based communications.
The best entrepreneurs and successful executives are constantly finding the balance between ideation and execution. They are masters at what we at Growthink like to call, "The Business of Ideas." They find a way to be both creative and task-focused, innovative and execution-oriented, creating new products and services that shake up the marketplace and are in market channel for customers to experience and buy.
We at Growthink get to work with entrepreneurs and businesses like these every day, helping them to shape their business strategies to maximize their competitive value, realize their opportunities, establish sustainability for their business models and seek capital to finance their endeavors. Sometimes, as is often the case with growing enterprises, the balance tips out of favor. Make sure your business or executive has the tools in place, or a strategic advisor at hand, to help them realign the equilibrium between ideas and execution