Table 3. Practitioner reference Gap...

Table 3.

Practitioner reference

Gap	Signs to watch for	Diagnostic questions	Spillover risk	Leadership response
Strategy-Execution (S-E)	People can recite the strategy but cannot connect it to their role. Middle management reports alignment, but frontline tells a different story. Upward feedback has slowed or stopped	Can your people describe their specific role in executing the strategy, beyond what the strategy is? When execution issues surface, do they trigger learning and adjustment? Are you acting on feedback when it reaches you?	Culture. Sustained execution failure erodes organizational trust. Cynicism embeds in the culture, replacing shared commitment with frustration and disengagement	Strategy side: Translate strategy into role-level commitments; clarify what teams should stop doing
Strategy-Execution (S-E)				Execution side: Establish review cadences; create adaptive feedback loops
Execution-Culture (E-C)	Execution behaviors revert to old norms after initial buy-in. Accountability conversations happen but the behavior does not change. “that’s not my department” is heard more than “let me connect you”	Are your incentives reinforcing the values you claim? Is what is measured consistent with what is rewarded? Is accountability applied in a way that builds or erodes your culture?	Strategy. Misaligned systems and values undermine the organization’s capacity to deliver on strategic commitments, causing strategy to falter from the inside	Execution side: Audit and realign incentives, controls, and decision rights against stated values
Execution-Culture (E-C)				Culture side: Identify norms blocking coordination; reinforce cultural enablers of execution
Culture-Strategy (C-S)	Strategy lands well in leadership meetings but disappears Two levels down. Disengagement rather than resistance: the organizational “yawn” people reference legacy identity: “we’ve never done it that way”	Are people engaging with the strategy or just complying with it? Is how strategy is discussed in leadership meetings consistent with how it is discussed on the frontline? Does strategy communication build commitment, or just awareness?	Execution. When people cannot reconcile strategic direction with organizational identity, discretionary effort is withheld. Execution suffers not from incapacity but from lack of motivation	Culture side: Surface assumptions limiting strategic options; engage people in sensemaking
Culture-Strategy (C-S)				Strategy side: Build commitment through involvement, not just communication

Gap	Signs to watch for	Diagnostic questions	Spillover risk	Leadership response
Strategy-Execution (S-E)	People can recite the strategy but cannot connect it to their role. Middle management reports alignment, but frontline tells a different story. Upward feedback has slowed or stopped	Can your people describe their specific role in executing the strategy, beyond what the strategy is? When execution issues surface, do they trigger learning and adjustment? Are you acting on feedback when it reaches you?	Culture. Sustained execution failure erodes organizational trust. Cynicism embeds in the culture, replacing shared commitment with frustration and disengagement	Strategy side: Translate strategy into role-level commitments; clarify what teams should stop doing
Strategy-Execution (S-E)				Execution side: Establish review cadences; create adaptive feedback loops
Execution-Culture (E-C)	Execution behaviors revert to old norms after initial buy-in. Accountability conversations happen but the behavior does not change. “that’s not my department” is heard more than “let me connect you”	Are your incentives reinforcing the values you claim? Is what is measured consistent with what is rewarded? Is accountability applied in a way that builds or erodes your culture?	Strategy. Misaligned systems and values undermine the organization’s capacity to deliver on strategic commitments, causing strategy to falter from the inside	Execution side: Audit and realign incentives, controls, and decision rights against stated values
Execution-Culture (E-C)				Culture side: Identify norms blocking coordination; reinforce cultural enablers of execution
Culture-Strategy (C-S)	Strategy lands well in leadership meetings but disappears Two levels down. Disengagement rather than resistance: the organizational “yawn” people reference legacy identity: “we’ve never done it that way”	Are people engaging with the strategy or just complying with it? Is how strategy is discussed in leadership meetings consistent with how it is discussed on the frontline? Does strategy communication build commitment, or just awareness?	Execution. When people cannot reconcile strategic direction with organizational identity, discretionary effort is withheld. Execution suffers not from incapacity but from lack of motivation	Culture side: Surface assumptions limiting strategic options; engage people in sensemaking
Culture-Strategy (C-S)				Strategy side: Build commitment through involvement, not just communication

Note(s):

Diagnostic questions are entry points for structured diagnosis, not a sequential checklist. The future quantitative phase will establish which boundary is driving the gap, enabling more precise intervention targeting. Once a gap is identified, determining which side of the gap is driving the misalignment allows the leader to focus the intervention, e.g., an S-E Gap rooted in poor translation and role clarity requires a different response than One driven by inconsistent review cadence

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