At the Heating, Airconditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) meeting in Maui this week, Mike Workman addressed what's keeping distributors and manufacturers from executing strategy effectively. His presentation was focused on returning to the profitability many saw pre-recession, and what priorities companies need to have to do that.

Here are five of the obstacles to strategy execution he outlined:

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1. The inability to manage change. Instead of creating and effectively managing change, most companies simply respond to change as it comes to them, Workman said. (Check out one approach to change management in the recent MDM Webcast, Managing Change: Tactics for Distributors.)

2. A poor, vague or misunderstood strategy. "I'm amazed at the number of people in an organization who don't know the strategy," he said.

3. Not having a shared intent. This, Workman said, is more important than the plan itself. The people in an organization need to have an understanding of "what they're about."

4. Not having the right information available to the right people. Earlier, Workman pointed out that when looking at the information to provide, you must "measure what matters." "Just because you can measure something doesn't mean you should," he said.

5. A deficiency in leadership. The role of a leader, he said, is to keep the past in the past. Create a culture not based on what used to be, but rather what you want your future to be, he said.

Workman was featured in a recent MDM Executive Briefing episode, where he discussed the New Rules for Rebates. Watch here.