Charitably, I think &quot;easy&quot; is the wrong word here. I think Fred meant something like, &quot;get the strategy right and the execution is straightforward hard work.&quot;<p>Still, if &quot;strategy&quot; is &quot;deciding what to do&quot; and &quot;execution&quot; is &quot;doing what you decided to do,&quot; then Fred&#x27;s statement is almost tautological; there&#x27;s nothing left for execution but &quot;straightforward hard work&quot; once you&#x27;ve drained out all the decision-making.<p>On the other hand, if we say &quot;strategy&quot; is only decision-making at the highest level, then I don&#x27;t think execution <i>is</i> just straightforward hard work; there&#x27;s logistics and tactics, too, which are critical.<p>Think of the dead companies with the right strategy who spent too much money, or who bet on the wrong technology platform, or who couldn&#x27;t marshal a top-tier sales organization.