As organizations begin planning for 2027, much of the attention will naturally turn toward budgets, targets, strategic priorities, and new initiatives. Before moving on to the next plan, it is worth taking a close look at what the current one has actually delivered. What worked, what did not, what should be repeated, and what should be stopped? Perhaps most importantly, what did the last year teach us about how well the organization actually executes?
In my experience, companies rarely struggle because they lack goals. More often, the challenge is what happens between setting those goals and delivering the results. Strategy can be clear and priorities can be well communicated, yet performance can still fall short because of gaps in ownership, measurement, governance, alignment, or intervention. Before finalizing the next plan, there are six execution gaps worth examining.
1. The Strategy to Execution Gap
One of the most overlooked parts of planning for the future is taking enough time to understand the past. Organizations naturally spend significant energy investigating poor performance. When an important result misses its target, people want to know what went wrong. Yet when the same measure significantly outperforms expectations, the examination is often far less rigorous.
That can be a missed opportunity. A positive performance gap can be just as valuable as a negative one. If customer satisfaction improves, productivity exceeds expectations, or a team consistently delivers above plan, the organization should understand why. Was the result driven by a process change, staffing decision, technology investment, operating practice, or some other factor? Was it repeatable, or did temporary external conditions contribute?
The same discipline should apply when performance falls short, but without immediately assuming the owner is at fault. A stronger review looks at whether the right person was selected, whether that person had the experience, authority, resources, and support required, and whether circumstances outside of their control materially affected the result.
This is why teams should look back far enough, often twelve to sixteen months, to identify patterns rather than isolated events. The activities that influence a result may occur well before the result becomes visible. It is also important not to confuse correlation with causation. If performance improved after a particular change, the organization should examine whether that change actually drove the result.
Before asking what should be done differently in 2027, a better question may be: What did the last twelve to sixteen months teach us about what actually drives our results?
2. The Ownership Gap
Once the right outcomes and activities have been identified, the next question is ownership. Assigning someone’s name to an objective does not necessarily mean the right owner was selected. Too often, responsibility is determined by title, reporting structure, or availability. Then, when the result misses the target, that individual is immediately asked to explain why.
Accountability matters, but the organization should first determine whether the owner was positioned to succeed. Did the person have the right experience and expertise? Enough authority to influence the result? Access to the right information and resources? Were critical dependencies outside of their control?
Former Stripe COO Claire Hughes Johnson has written extensively about matching the right talent to the work and creating the management systems that allow people to perform. That idea is especially relevant here. Owners should be held accountable, but the organization also has a responsibility to select the right person and create the conditions for success.
There is also an important difference between ownership and participation. Twenty people may contribute to an initiative, but that does not mean twenty people own it. Clear execution usually requires one person who understands the result, monitors the underlying drivers, and knows when action needs to be taken.
3. The Measurement Gap
Most organizations do not suffer from a lack of metrics. In many cases, they have too many. The real question is whether those measures help people manage the business or simply report what has already happened.
Revenue, customer satisfaction, operating expense, productivity, profitability, and project completion are important outcomes, but they are generally lagging indicators. By the time a meaningful change appears, the actions that caused it may have occurred weeks or months earlier. That is why the operating team needs to identify the leading indicators underneath its most important outcomes.
If customer experience is the result, what activities are likely to influence it before the survey score changes? If productivity is the outcome, what measures around workload, staffing, scheduling, quality, or rework indicate where productivity is headed? If project completion is the goal, what milestones and dependencies tell the organization whether delivery is truly on track?
The goal is not to add more measures. It is to identify the few that provide the clearest line of sight between today’s activity and tomorrow’s result. A strong measurement system should help answer two questions quickly: Where are we now, and where are we likely to be if nothing changes?
4. The Operating Rhythm Gap
A strong execution process requires the right management cadence, and more meetings are not necessarily the answer. Some organizations meet too infrequently. Performance may only receive serious attention during quarterly reviews, allowing issues to build between governance sessions. By the time a significant problem is discussed, valuable time has already been lost.
Other organizations create the opposite problem. They meet weekly, or even more frequently, on matters that do not require that level of attention. Managers and employees spend significant time preparing presentations and attending status reviews rather than doing the work necessary to improve the result.
The better question is not simply how often the team should meet. It is how frequently a particular result requires management attention. Some execution drivers may warrant weekly review, while others are better suited to monthly or quarterly examination.
The operating rhythm should also be designed around decisions rather than presentations. A productive governance session should clarify what changed, what is moving off plan, why it is happening, what action is required, who owns that action, and when it will be revisited.
The objective is to create enough governance to surface issues early, but not so much that the process itself becomes an obstacle to execution.
5. The Organizational Alignment Gap
Another execution problem occurs when there are too many people managing the work and too few people actually doing it. An initiative may have an executive sponsor, several functional managers, project managers, governance teams, and steering committees, yet the actual execution team may still be stretched thin.
Organizations should periodically examine the structure around important work and ask whether they have the right balance of decision-makers and doers. There are people who need to know what is happening, people who need to make decisions, and people who need to actually perform the work. Those groups are not always the same.
Simon Sinek’s work around trusting teams offers a useful reminder. Strong teams need enough trust and clarity for the people closest to the work to raise problems, question assumptions, and ask for help. Those closest to execution often see issues before anyone else.
Alignment is not simply making sure everyone has seen the strategy presentation. It is making sure the organization understands who decides, who executes, who needs visibility, and how those roles connect to the desired result.
6. The Intervention Gap
Identifying that a result is off track is only the beginning. The real test of an execution system is what happens next. Organizations often recognize poor performance but lack a consistent method for deciding when intervention is necessary and what type of response is appropriate.
Every miss does not require an executive response. Some variations are temporary and can be corrected by the owner and team. Others require additional resources, cross-functional support, or a change in direction.
When a result moves off plan, the first step should be to determine what is actually driving the variance. Is an execution driver underperforming? Was an assumption in the original plan incorrect? Has an external condition changed? Does the owner lack resources or authority? Is another function creating a dependency? Or is the organization executing exactly as planned, while the plan itself is no longer producing the expected outcome?
The quality of the intervention depends on the quality of the diagnosis. Organizations also need clear thresholds for action. Strong execution systems create visibility early enough for decision-makers to act while meaningful options still exist.
The purpose of governance is not simply to identify red or green metrics. It is to help the organization recognize when something requires attention, understand why, and intervene before a manageable issue becomes a missed objective.
Before Adding More to the 2027 Plan
Planning for a new year naturally creates momentum toward new objectives, initiatives, and targets. But sometimes the most valuable improvement is not adding something new. It is fixing the execution system that already exists.
Before finalizing the 2027 plan, organizations should examine whether they understand what drove past performance, whether accountability sits with the right people, whether the right things are being measured, whether governance occurs at the right frequency, whether there is enough execution capacity, and whether the organization knows when and how to intervene.
The objective is not to build a perfect management process. It is to create a clearer connection between strategy, people, execution, and results. Organizations rarely suffer from a shortage of goals. The real opportunity is becoming more disciplined about turning those goals into results.