Why I Signed a Waiver to Test My Strategy: Part Three Execution

Philip Edgell
Sep 3, 2025
5 min read

TL;DR

Execution is the discipline that turns strategy into results.
Clear outcomes, rhythms, and accountability are non‑negotiable.
Resilient systems and empowered teams ensure success.
Execution of the Monster 300 aged me (picture taken 5 minutes after running for 6 days straight)

The Night I Couldn’t Sleep

12:30 a.m., day one, over 70 km’s done, 430 km to go.

The Grand Enchantment aid station was supposed to be where I “banked” sleep early in the race.

Instead, chaos.

Beds full. Medics shouting. Runners stumbling in and out, sick and desperate.

I lay on the cold dirt, shivering, wide awake, anxiety spiking. This was not the plan.

My choice: stay frustrated and fall behind, or pivot.

I sent a text to my friends; they were somewhere in the chaos. I turned on my headlamp and ran alone into the desert night.

By sunrise, I had made substantial progress, and despite having been awake for over twenty-four hours, I felt great.

Lesson for leaders: execution collapses if you cling to plans that aren’t working. Resilient execution requires pivots without losing sight of the bigger outcome.

Business Parallels: The Discipline of Execution

In the EdgeOS framework, execution is built on two foundations:

Capabilities: Does your organization have the structure, skills, and resilience to deliver consistently?
Management Systems: Do you have the rhythms and tools to ensure accountability and clarity?

Without both, strategy dies in PowerPoint slides.

In the first two newsletters in the series, I covered vision and strategy; what actually produces results is execution.

Vision sets the destination. Strategy maps the path. But execution is the long, grinding journey — where discipline, adaptability, and teamwork determine whether you actually arrive.

The Monster 300 required two distinct execution paths: the training blocks to get ready for the race and the race itself.

Capabilities: An Honest Assessment of The Gaps

Signing up for the race was the easiest part.

Once I identified my vision for finishing and my race strategy to achieve it, I had to conduct a brutally honest self-assessment to create an execution plan. I wasn't being hard on myself, but I was putting my current state in the context of my desired end state to figure out where to focus.

The assessment led to hiring a biomechanics expert to help with efficiency, testing various shoes, and experimenting with real food that could be consumed easily on the go.

A similar discussion needs to take place regarding your business. Once you have done the hard work of designing your strategy, it is necessary to figure out how to adapt the organization to achieve it.

As a great mentor told me, “Organizations are perfectly organized to get the results they get”. If your strategy charts a course to a significantly different outcome, then it is likely that you will have to execute things differently to achieve success.

Management Systems: The Importance of Rhythms

Finishing the race was an enormous accomplishment, but I am most proud of the year-long execution of my training plan.

The discipline to execute the training plan was rooted in the consistent pattern I followed day after day, week after week, month after month, making my progress predictable and measurable, and it removed almost all drama (that’s another newsletter).

My key metrics were total time on my feet and kilometres per week, growing by a percentage every week.

My race execution was based on a 6 km/h moving time and a 5 km/h total time, excluding sleep, for six consecutive days.

There were many other variables at play, but I knew I couldn't control them all and that if I overcomplicated the execution plan, I would overwhelm myself.

The secret was to have the fewest number of measurable outcomes that I could control, over a defined period of time, which would help me understand if I was on track or not.

Your Business is No Different

Your ability to achieve your strategy, and the key metrics that underpin it, is the result of consistently doing a series of things well over time.

To understand if you are making progress, you must establish a measurement and execution rhythm for your teams and clearly articulate what must happen during those periods.

My favourite tool for execution is the one-page plan, along with the associated quarterly rhythm aligned to financial reporting. Each quarterly sprint is thirteen weeks long and is bookended by an accountability offsite.

Reporting periods don't change. Pre-booking these meetings a year in advance means no one is ever surprised or unavailable for these critical execution and accountability sessions.

For a deeper dive into rhythms, click here.

Well, that didn't go as planned!

Inevitably, no matter how well you plan, things will happen. I had a few doozies:

Blisters:

After thousands of training kilometres without a single blister, I developed hot spots in the first twenty kilometres. I had a foot care contingency plan, including extra socks and blister kits, in case of any issues. The medics at the aid stations were lifesavers, literally keeping me on my feet.

Execution lesson:

Building plans and contingencies through “what if” discussions during the formulation of your strategy ensures your team will not get knocked off course when unforeseen circumstances occur.

Don’t spend time on extreme edge cases, but a strong pre-mortem discussion will likely surface scenarios to plan for in execution.

Shoes:

I thought I had my shoe strategy dialled, but what I didn’t anticipate was my feet swelling in 37°C heat. Fortunately, I had a spare pair of shoes one size larger, a strong recommendation from an invaluable source.

Execution lesson:

Build resilience into systems to absorb shocks. Whether it is cash, key customers, or high-producing salespeople, ensure your success is not held hostage by a single vulnerability.

Food:

I trained all year on peanut butter and honey sandwiches, dried dates, mangos, and trail mix. Unfortunately, it all baked in the desert sun, becoming inedible. I pivoted to aid station food.

Execution lesson:

Empower teams to adapt locally when the central plan fails. The key is to move decision-making as close to the problems as possible. Businesses move too fast to provide a manual; you must teach your team to think if you want to scale.

Leadership Takeaways

Execution is not about doing more, it’s about doing what matters — consistently.
Build rhythms that create alignment and accountability.
Anticipate pivots and empower teams to adapt.
Work not just on the “what” (tasks) but on the “how” (team dynamics).
Conduct brutally honest capability assessments to identify and close execution gaps.