Every CEO I've ever worked with was able to clearly explain their strategy. Be clear, confident and persuasive. They can explain the market they are targeting, the competitive advantage they are building, and the financial results they are focused on achieving. Most people have spent serious time and money developing that strategy. A lot of people bring in their best minds and pressure test them.
And they go back to running a company that wasn't built to do that.
After working with more than 220 CEOs in 23 countries in sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, aerospace, and energy, I have come to a conclusion that makes some leaders uncomfortable. Strategy is rarely an issue. The operating model underneath that is almost always the case.
Misconceptions at the heart of CEO leadership
There is a widespread belief that the CEO's primary job is to set direction. To see around the corner, make big decisions and inspire your organization towards a compelling future. Strategy makes headlines. Includes board meeting materials, off-site agendas, and business school coverage.
What doesn't get enough attention is the infrastructure that determines whether a strategy actually reaches the front lines or quietly dies somewhere between executives and those responsible for execution.
The gap between these two outcomes is not a matter of strategy. It's a question of organizational design. In my experience, it's the gap that separates CEOs who consistently deliver results from those who constantly explain why they're underperforming.
What is an operating model actually?
When I talk about operating models, I'm not talking about org charts or process maps. These are artifacts of organizational thinking, not its essence.
In reality, the operating model boils down to three factors that determine whether a strategy reaches the forefront or gets stuck in the executive branch.
right to decide. Who makes decisions in your organization, not just on paper, but in reality? In most companies, this is more vague than CEOs would like to admit. Decisions are made by the most persistent person, the most senior person in the room, or the person most willing to absorb the political costs of making a decision. As a result, organizations end up making decisions at the wrong level, the pace of escalation slows execution, and ownership is never clear, making it impossible to assign accountability.
playing rhythm. How does performance data flow through the organization, and how quickly can deviations from plan be addressed? Most performance management processes are designed to measure what happens, rather than change what happens next. By the time discrepancies become apparent during quarterly business reviews, the window for corrective action is often already closed. Companies that operate with consistency develop a proactive cadence during weekly, monthly, and quarterly reviews, using countdown decision-making techniques that generate early warning signals and critical course corrections rather than historical records.
responsibility structure. It is not a performance appraisal process. This is not a compensation system. Be specific and clear about who is responsible for what outcomes and what will happen predictably and consistently if those outcomes are not achieved. Accountability in most organizations is aspirational. A well-functioning organization is structural.
One industrial company illustrates how execution can quickly improve when the operating model is clear. A major North American railroad was struggling with fragmented enforcement across 13 divisions, including inconsistent procedures, inadequate procedures, and a reactionary culture that limited the use of assets. By clarifying decision-making authority, operational cadence, and accountability through locked demand schedules, terminal capacity planning, and predictive performance metrics, results were achieved quickly. On-time performance improved by 52%, network speed increased by 11%, and EBITDA improved by $50 million with no additional capital investment. Nothing changed about strategy. What has changed is the underlying architecture.
Together, these three elements form an operating model that transforms strategy into results or absorbs it without a trace. Most CEOs inherit this model from their predecessors, never consider it, and try to implement new strategies based on architectures designed in a different era.
What I have consistently seen through Brooks' work is that organizations that maintain increased profitability and predictable performance are those that intentionally connect their financial model to their operating model. In these organizations, profit behavior, predictability of cash, and the ability to controllably deploy growth are not surprises in the numbers, but the result of how the organization is designed.
Why strategies fail to translate
The data on this is not subtle. The 2025 Strategy Execution Status Report, which surveyed senior leaders from over 250 organizations, found that 70% of leaders admit to failing in strategy execution. Only 29% report that leaders have strong accountability for execution, and only one in four organizations connect performance reviews to strategic goals.
PMI's 2025 Global Study surveyed more than 5,800 project professionals and executives and found that only half of today's projects meet the latest definition of success. The biggest barrier cited by executives was the disconnect between planning and execution.
Perhaps most revealing, Gallup's 2025 Global State of the Workplace report found that global employee engagement fell to 21% last year, costing the global economy $438 billion in lost productivity.
CEOs often treat disengagement as a cultural or operational problem. I would argue that this is an operating model issue. When decision rights are unclear, accountability is inconsistent, and performance data isn't flowing in a way that helps people understand how their work is linked to outcomes, disengagement is a reasonable response. You can't inspire people to run a model that isn't designed to bring them success.
Questions Most CEOs Never Ask
The questions that I keep coming back to and that are honestly worth sitting down with are: If your strategy requires your organization to behave differently than it currently does, what specifically will change about how you make decisions, manage performance, and increase accountability?
Most CEOs can't answer that question accurately. Not because they lack intelligence or ambition, but because they are focused on the strategy itself and assume that execution will follow.
it's not.
Execution is the product of operating model design, and operating model design is the CEO's job.
Leaders who consistently outperform their colleagues are not necessarily better strategists. In my experience, they are better architects. They have built an organization where strategy reaches the front lines intact and those responsible for execution have the clarity, information, and accountability structures they need to deliver the expected results. They treat predictability as something that can be manipulated, rather than something that can be expected.
What is required of a CEO
The practical implications are straightforward, even if it is not easy. Before the next strategy cycle, before the next growth goal is set, or before the next transformation program is launched, every CEO needs to be able to clearly answer three questions.
- Is decision-making authority within your organization aligned with the strategy you are trying to implement? Or are important decisions being made too high, too late, or by the wrong people?
- Does your performance management system allow you to identify and address deviations from plan early, or does it primarily explain after the fact why results did not meet expectations?
- Is accountability in your organization structural, built into how roles are designed and performance is managed, or is it dependent on the personal aspirations of individual managers?
If the answers to those questions are unpleasant, it's work. It's not a strategy refresh. It's not a cultural initiative. It's not a new technology platform.
This urgency will only increase as organizations layer AI efforts into operating models that were already struggling to execute on pre-AI strategies.
Strategy determines where a company wants to go. Your operating model will determine whether you get there.
The operating model is the responsibility of the CEO. Leaders who understand this and act on it are the ones whose organizations consistently deliver results.
