145. Crispin Thompson - How To Turn Strategy Into Results

Most strategies don't fail because the idea was wrong. They fail because nobody properly translated the idea into execution.

In this conversation with Crispin Thompson, we got into the uncomfortable gap between strategy and results. We talked about why leaders keep looking for technology to solve process problems, why shiny new initiatives kill momentum, and why some of the best turnarounds come from discipline rather than transformation. If you're responsible for growth, change, or commercial performance, there's a lot in here worth paying attention to.

In this episode

The question I kept coming back to was simple: how do you turn a good idea into a result?

• Define what success actually looks like before you launch anything
• Bring the people closest to the work into the conversation earlier than feels comfortable
• Fix broken processes before you automate them
• Measure progress relentlessly so you can defend investment and maintain focus
• Resist the temptation to abandon good work for the next shiny initiative

Episode highlights

• 06:58 Why asking "what can we do consistently?" unlocked a turnaround that others thought was impossible
• 09:09 The uncomfortable truth: the turnaround succeeded through rigour, not technology
• 10:55 Why AI doesn't fix bad processes. It scales them
• 15:07 The simplest strategy question most leadership teams never answer properly: what does good look like?
• 22:19 Every dip in performance gets blamed on change unless you're ahead of the story
• 26:06 The leadership behaviour that quietly destroys execution: turning "we" into "I"
• 30:51 Crispin's billboard message: you almost never get what you don't ask for

Links and resources

• The Human Advantage: Emotional Intelligence in the Age of AI by Crispin Thompson
• Crispin Thompson https://www.linkedin.com/in/crispinthompson/
• Crispin's leadership advisory business http://www.leadership-studio.com/

If you found this conversation useful, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with another founder, MD, or senior commercial leader who is trying to turn strategy into results. It helps more people find the podcast, and it helps us keep having conversations that go beyond the usual leadership clichés.