Every December, leaders talk about slowing down and every December, they don’t! Instead, many of us end up watching a Christmas movie with one eye on the screen and the other quietly evaluating how the whole thing would fall apart inside our own organizations. This year’s unexpected strategy lesson comes from Red One.
On the surface, it’s a high-energy Christmas action movie involving Santa, elite security teams, mythological creatures, and enough chaos to derail even the most confident planning committee. Strip away the holiday gloss and explosions, and what you’re really watching is a case study in strategy execution under pressure.
The Plan Wasn’t Bad. Reality Just Didn’t Care.
At the start of Red One, everything appears under control. Security is tight. Roles are clear. Technology is advanced. Contingencies exist. In business terms, this is the equivalent of a well-constructed strategic plan: clear objectives, defined ownership, risk assessments completed, governance firmly in place.
Then Santa gets kidnapped…
That’s the movie version of a market shift, a competitor move, a regulatory change, or a technology disruption showing up uninvited and ignoring your assumptions. The plan didn’t fail because it was flawed. It failed because conditions changed. That isn’t a planning problem…it’s an execution problem.
Strategy Doesn’t Break. Rigid Execution Does.
No one pauses to rewrite the plan. No task force debates frameworks. No one schedules a follow-up meeting for next week…they move. Roles shift. Information flows. Decisions are made quickly, often with incomplete data. Tactics change without losing sight of the organization’s objectives.
That’s What Agile Looks Like in the Real World!
It’s not improvising for its own sake…it isn’t chaos. Rather, it is disciplined adaptation to changing circumstances in real time. Organizations don’t usually struggle because they lack strategy, but rather because they treat strategy execution as a static process which doesn’t work well when everything else is moving.
Governance Still Matters, but Not in the Way We Usually Use It.
Red One is full of command structures, authority, protocols, and the like. No question as to whether or not governance exists. What is missing, and most likely intentional, is bureaucratic bottlenecks in decision-making. When speed matters, everyone already knows:
• Who can decide
• Who is responsible for what
• How far they can move without guidance and asking permission
It is clarity in roles like this that allows the team to adapt to the ever-changing circumstances without losing control.
In many organizations today, governance exists and works perfectly until it slows everything down resulting in multiplying layers, adding inefficient controls resulting in delayed approvals and decisions. Effective governance doesn’t protect the organization’s plan…it protects execution.
The Importance of Alignment Cannot Be Overstated
Despite the wildly different personalities portrayed in Red One, the one constant is everyone is aware of and focused on the most important objective, at hand: “SAVE CHRISTMAS!” There may disagree on the methods to incorporate, but are adjusting constantly as conditions continue to change. But regardless, the one thing they never lose is being focused and aligned on the desired outcomes. Keeping these outcomes in perspective and in sight is what truly enables agility.
In many organizations, we see misalignment as:
• Teams pulling in different directions
• Unaligned initiatives competing for attention
• People executing efficiently, but on the wrong things
Agility without alignment creates a lot of needless noise, while Alignment without agility creates inactivity and lack of progress. To be successful, you need both!
Metrics are Important, But Generally Lag in a Dynamic Environment
Throughout the movie, no one stops to check a dashboard, but feedback among each is continuous:
• Are we closer than we were five minutes ago?
• Did that decision help or hurt?
• What just changed that we need to account for?
When organizations are attune to these types of questions, that is performance management, in real time!
The mistake many organizations make is to rely on lagging indicators and quarterly review to tell them what already went wrong. By then, recovery is much harder and much more expensive. Execution always improves when leaders are aware of and can see movement early and adjust fast.
When the Plan Collapses, Culture Shows Up
Some of the most revealing moments in Red One aren’t the action scenes, but rather the responses to failures. When things break down, people either take ownership, share information, adjust and move, or they just wait, deflect blame, and protect themselves. Strategy execution exposes an organization’s culture immediately without needing to know what the Mission statement is. If an organization doesn’t encourage adaptability before things go wrong, this trait won’t magically appear when the pressure is on.
The Real Lesson
Red One isn’t a business movie, but it unintentionally reinforces many truths several leaders already know, yet sometimes ignore:
• Strategy rarely fails on paper
• Execution fails when it can’t adapt
• Governance should enable speed
• Alignment enables flexibility
• Feedback enables corrections
• Culture determines behavior under stress
Planning is important and it matters. But execution is where strategy lives or dies!
As you head into your next planning cycle, armed with objectives, initiatives and carefully worded assumptions, remember this:
You don’t need to predict every disruption. But you do need the ability to respond to it, whatever it is, when it happens.
If Santa’s operation can pivot mid-crisis, your organization probably can too. And if your strategy is sound, but you keep falling flat when it comes to execution, it may be time to change focus to building the capabilities, governance, and discipline required to consistently and timely execution of your plan.
If you need help turning strategy into action, aligning teams, or building an execution system that holds up when reality intervenes, that’s exactly where we can help. Contact Strategy Management Group (SMG) today at 919-460-8180.
Happy Holidays…and here’s to strategies that actually get executed!!
Terry is Balanced Scorecard Institute's Director of Training and Senior Associate with over 30 years of experience working in both the private and public sectors.