There is this imbalance that I often encounter when listening to your stories about your struggles within large organizations. There is often an oversupply of visionary thinkers, leaders who generate bold ideas, create strategies, and attend endless meetings about 💡”innovation” , but a visible lack of the necessary execution-focused professionals (along with their time) to turn those ideas into reality.
The result is a bullshit loop where ideas bounce around between PowerPoint presentations, town halls, and strategy workshops but rarely reach the states of execution and reality.
When Everyone Thinks They’re Wise
One of the underlying problems is the overestimation of competence, a phenomenon captured by the 🧠 Dunning-Kruger Effect. In large companies, this manifests as:
- Executives who believe they’re great at execution but have never implemented anything themselves.
- Middle managers who assume they’re strategic thinkers but simply just recite frameworks from leadership books.
- A culture where self-confidence outweighs real capability.
Take Kodak for example, who was once a leader in photography. The company, whose technicians invented the 📷 digital camera in 1975 but the management failed to execute on it. Why? Senior leaders overestimated the longevity of traditional film and underestimated how quickly digital photography would take over. They were stuck in a vision that no longer matched reality, while more execution-driven companies like Canon and Sony overtook them.
The Corporate Bullshit Bubble
The bigger the company, the more layers of leadership dilute real execution. Any company above the headcount of 1000 runs with a 10-20% ineffective/unnecessary employee base (this is my own estimate after 20+ years working with the kind). This bubble is fueled by:
- Endless jargon and buzzwords (“synergies,” “alignment,” “value streams”) instead of concrete actions.
- Multiple sign-off layers, making even simple decisions require excessive approval and bureaucracy.
- Corporate storytelling that prioritizes “messaging” over measurable results.
Swissair, once called the ✈️ “Flying Bank” , had an overly rigid leadership structure that slowed decision-making. The airline failed to respond swiftly to market changes, leading to financial difficulties and ultimately bankruptcy. Layers of decision-makers created a bureaucratic nightmare where action was delayed in favor of endless strategic discussions.
The Hidden Cost of Overthinking and Underdoing
Why does execution slow down in big companies? Often, it’s because they spend too much ⏳ time strategizing and too little time doing. Nokia’s story is a textbook case of execution debt (study discovered by my students at Corvinus Uni). The company dominated mobile phones but hesitated to adopt smartphone technology, even though the case was presented to senior management consecutively throughout the years. By the time they reacted, Apple 🍏 and Android 🤖 had taken over the market. Nokia’s over-reliance on internal strategic discussions, instead of rapidly executing on the market shift, led to its downfall. I wish they could make a nice comeback with a smart cellphone in the size of their old ones…
So How can We Fix the Dreamer-Doer Ratio?
As I see, the real dangers of overthinking, bureaucracy, and leadership layers is that they slow down execution tremendously. In the meanwhile, people who had the idea originally, lose their motivation to follow through with them. What we need for big organizations is to have them 🏗️ rebalance vision with action, ensuring their best ideas don’t just stay in PowerPoint but actually make it to the market. Here are a few ideas, to test, not just in theory, but in execution as well 😉
✅ Fewer “thought leaders,” more action leaders – also give them a title, as words create our reality.
✅ Clearer ownership of execution. Even if there is still a need for a chain of approvals, have an assigned and designated executor named throughout the process who later will be responsible for pushing the matter through.
✅ Smarter hiring: Less emphasis on flashy resumes, more on real capability – this is a tricky one because first you need more doers and less thinkers in HR… 😉
What’s your experience? Have you seen too many dreamers and too few doers in your company? Let’s hear your stories! 🎤 Or simply just contact me to discuss options to change your situation!