All strategies will fail if you don't hold people accountable!

A large number of organisations fail to execute on their strategy, because their culture doesn’t drive "accountability".  Not holding people accountable for what they are supposed to deliver is the single most important reasons why some organisations consistently underperform.  Some of the visible symptoms of this culture are:

1. Multiple, long, unstructured and open ended meetings without a clear agenda and action tracker.  People don’t follow up and follow through on the actions. No one is held accountable. 
2. Senior leadership team members do not confront each other –  they think "being nice" to each other is incompatible with "demanding performance" from each other. No one is held accountable.
3. Instead of focusing on their jobs, people tend to enjoy doing things which are often outside their domain.  Product Manager wants to manage projects, Engineering Manager wants to prioritise features instead of worrying about quality and productivity, Sales wants to sell what the product doesn’t have. No one is held accountable.
4. Estimates are unrealistic, everyone overstates the effort, no one is willing to take risks. No one is held accountable.
5. Everybody seems to have a view on how company should be run but no body actually does anything about it. No one is held accountable.
6. Periodically in the strategy or planning offsites/workshops, people list out with several action items but no one takes it seriously. Old timers say - we have tried it before, it doesn't work. New guys give up even before they start. No one is held accountable.
7. People hide behind the facade of organisation structure/lack of power/authority/reporting lines and always find someone else to blame. Everybody has an excuse or reason for not delivering. No one is held accountable.
8. Upward delegation is rampant, every decision goes to the CXO level. No one is held accountable. 
9. Downward delegation is also rampant. Senior executives delegate key leadership tasks to other people in their team. No one is held accountable. 
10. Consultants are paid without a clear scope for their deliverables. Every three year a new consulting firm is retained. Only the "Graphics" and "English" change. What doesn’t change  - is the fact that - No one is held accountable.
11. Even some of the board members ask superficial questions. Mostly on accounting and housekeeping or human resource processes. No one does a deep dive into the business strategy and execution challenges. Who is accountable?

Successful and Effective "Execution" demands "Accountability", which begins by holding yourself to the same standards and influencing your teams to do the same. Unless you create a culture of holding people accountable for delivering what they are supposed to, you will continue to face severe execution challenges within your organisation. 

(I am assuming your people already know what their deliverables are. If not, then you have a more fundamental issue to address before you start looking at your execution challenges)