Michael Porter, perhaps the ultimate strategy guru, once wrote "Operational Excellence is not Strategy". Knowledge Worker Performance is not a strategy. It is however the most important aspect in delivering a strategy.

- Need a new product - its the marketers and engineers who develop it.

- Need more sales - its the sales staff who deliver.

- Need a new brand - its the marketers who define it.

- Need more staff - its the HR team who find them.

- Planning to merge or acquire - its the lawyers, accountants and strategists who assess and negotiate.

All of these tasks are done primarily by knowledge workers, be they managers or professionals. For any of these there is a finite amount of work that needs to be done to implement the strategy. If the team is twice as productive, the work gets done twice as fast, and you deliver your strategy sooner.

This sounds simple, in fact so simple you'll wonder why it hasn't been done before. Despite this, the research on the subject suggests that the average knowledge worker is less than 20% productive. How big an opportunity does that give to improve the implementation of strategy?