UNSTUCK!: The 5 Factors of the World's Highest-Performing Organisations

By Mike Alafaci

Just as Good to Great is a management classic for building great organisations, Unstuck! is a blueprint for accelerating them.

Tired of strategy that stalls? Is your organisation working hard, but not getting results fast enough? You're not alone. The strategy execution gap is common for even th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Alafaci
• Release date: Feb 5, 2025
• ISBN: 9781763865853

Mike Alafaci

Mike Alafaci is a senior business executive and management consultant. He has worked with some of the world's largest organisations on large-scale transformation and the development of high-performing leaders and teams. He has lived and worked in Australia, the USA, Asia Pacific, Europe and the UK, leading regional and global teams. His teams consistently delivered results in the top 5% globally by being empowered to innovate, move quickly and work together with full accountability. And they had fun doing it! Mike left his corporate career to help others be successful. In his own words, "I have seen too many people succeed in business by hurting others. It doesn't have to be like that. I want to help people be wildly successful in a way they can be proud of".

Book preview

Factor #1

Hands-On Leadership

Getting people to execute well is what separates the world’s high-performing organisations from all others. Unfortunately, many organisations have agap between strategy and execution. The gap is between the leaders who set the strategy and the workers who execute it.

This gap goes both ways. Workers say that leaders don’t understand what they do or what they need. Leaders say workers don’t appreciate the constraints and reasons behind the strategy.

More concerning are studies show that only 1 in 7 workers (15% of the people who execute the strategy) can name only 1 of the strategic goals their leaders had set. And of those people, half of them admitted they were not committed to achieve the goal, nor were they held accountable for progress against the goals.

It is no wonder that execution is a big problem for executives. If most people don’t know where the goal posts are, how can they possibly kick a goal? And if the small number of people who can see the goal posts don’t care about kicking a goal and are not held accountable, chances of winning the game are significantly reduced.

So, who’s responsibility is the gap between strategy and execution?

In a sporting team, the responsibility sits firmly with the team coach—the owner of the strategy. In an organisation the team coach and owner of the strategy is the CEO and their executive