Part I: The System
W. Edwards Deming argued that 94–96 percent of performance comes from the system, not the individual. It is easy to gloss over his argument.
A friend of mine was a rainmaker in a second-generation bank. Starboy. Targets bent around him. Corporate deposits. Structured deals. Big clients. When numbers were tight, management called him. He understood credit. He understood politics. He knew how to move files through committees. He could close.
Then a fintech recruited him. Higher upside. Faster growth. Less bureaucracy. He was bored, so he moved.
Six months in, the magic slowed. Same man. Different results.
What changed?
At the bank, he was backed by a strong balance sheet, flexible pricing, deep product suites, brand trust, and institutional gravity. At the fintech, margins were thinner. The cost of capital was higher. Credit models were rigid. Risk tolerance was tighter. The brand carried less weight. Product options were narrower.
His skill did not disappear. The system changed. In one case, he had system leverage. Talent matters, but it converts into outcomes only within an enabling system.
The system always wins.
Part II: Five Dimensions, Not Two
Most people divide work into two categories: strategy and execution. That division is too crude.
Work is layered.
Some work sets direction. Some work is design. Some work aligns movement. Some work builds new capability. Some work runs existing capability. These are not job titles. They are dimensions.
Hierarchy distributes authority. It does not determine the layer of work being performed.
There are five dimensions of work. Strategy. Design. Coordination. Projects. Operations. When we collapse all of that into “strategy versus execution,” we lose precision. And when leaders lose precision, they mistake activity for progress.
A CEO can spend a day doing operations. A product manager can spend a day shaping strategy. Labels do not determine the dimension.
Performance is the movement of intention across five dimensions. Failure is distortion across them.
Part III: The Upstream Layers
1. Strategy: Direction Under Uncertainty
Strategy is constrained intent. It answers: What are we trying to achieve, and what are we willing to sacrifice to achieve it?
If nothing is eliminated, there is no strategy.
Strategy defines the playing field. It sets the boundaries within which every other dimension operates. When strategy is vague, downstream functions invent their own meaning. Fragmentation begins at the top.
Strategy shapes the work before the work begins.
2. Design: Form and Architecture
Design converts intent into structure.
Externally, it defines what we build: products, services, value propositions.
Internally, it defines how we deliver: workflows, incentives, structure, policies, decision rights, information flow.
Design encodes behavior. Incentives shape choices. Structure shapes outcomes. Culture is repeated architecture.
The governing design principle is simply to make the right action easy and the wrong action hard. Most downstream pain is design failure, wearing an execution mask.
3. Coordination: Alignment of Purposeful Agents
Organizations are not machines. They are collections of intelligent, self-directed humans. Alignment is not natural. It must be constructed.
Coordination synchronizes timing, sequencing, dependencies, and decision rights. It subordinates local optimization to system optimization.
Strategy sets direction. Coordination sets rhythm. And without rhythm, direction collapses into noise.
Part IV: Two Kinds of Execution
Every organization runs two paths at once: running the business and changing the business.
4. Projects: Building New Capability
Projects are temporary risk containers designed to produce permanent capability.
A new product. A new system. A new market entry. A new structure.
Projects absorb volatility so operations can remain stable. And when projects never land, you get innovation theater. When operations absorb unfinished change, you get burnout.
Projects build the future.
5. Operations: Running Existing Capability
Operations delivers consistency, cadence, quality, and feedback.
Strategy operates at the level of intent. Operations operates at the level of constraint. If operations struggles, something upstream failed. And when leaders ignore operational feedback, they drift into narrative delusion.
Operations is where system-truth becomes visible.
There are two coherent flows of work.
Strategy → Design → Coordination → Operations.
Strategy → Design → Coordination → Projects.
One flow runs current capacity. The other creates new capability.
Part V: System Coherence and Upstream Correction
Last week I argued that functions are a myth. A strong sales team cannot rescue a broken portfolio. A disciplined finance team cannot compensate for an incoherent strategy.
When a result is missed, the instinct is to exert pressure on the operations layer — the Starboy. Work harder. Stay later.
But if performance is a translation problem, failure rarely originates where it surfaces.
The leader’s job is not just to intensify pressure downstream. It is to diagnose the distortion upstream. Most organizations lack the discipline to move upstream. Causality flows downstream, and correction must move upstream.
When operations fail, examine the operations layer, but also check the design. Are incentives misaligned? Are tools inadequate? Is the workflow fighting the worker?
When projects stall, examine coordination. Were dependencies synchronized? Were decision rights clear? Was the sequencing disciplined?
When coordination breaks down, examine design and strategy. Is the structure ambiguous? Are priorities conflicting? Did we attempt to align around a direction that was never truly chosen?
When Design produces a misfit, examine Strategy. Did we define trade-offs? Did we choose what to sacrifice? Or did we attempt to be everything at once?
So, the real question is not always who missed the number.
It is which dimension broke first.