And her name was Mileva Maric (Mrs. Albert Einstein). She was a high achiever and served as a sounding board for her husband’s work. She did not develop the mathematical concepts, but played a key role in execution and mathematical error-checking. Would e=mc2 have come to fruition without a partner to help the genius strategic thinker meet deadlines and make decisions?
The strongest of teams (marriage, friendship or business) have a mix of two distinct strengths: execution and strategy.
 

Who exactly is an executor? Felix Unger.
An executor develops plan A and sees it through to the death on—better yet before—deadline. If left to their own devices during execution, quality is often sacrificed. It is about picking up the plan, starting work on it, and finishing it by the deadline. They strongly believe that something is better than nothing. Mediocre and done is better than brilliant but never finished, utilized, or shared. An executor wears the control freak badge not out of pride but because they need and want the job done. Executors create a "stressful high" well ahead of deadline. Executors’ ease with decision making, streamlining, and prioritizing means they pick favorites easily. Questions like what’s your favorite color or what’s your favorite food have ready answers. An executor squirms when playing a board game if someone picks their favorite colored peg before them. They tend to be filers with everything away and neat, all i's dotted and t's crossed.
 

An executor’s opposite is the strategist: Oscar Madison.
A strategist plans A,B,C,D, and E. They then test different steps in each one and decide the best action day by day, regardless of time constraints. They try to meet the deadline, but are satisfied with the “ish” of deadlines (around or past) due to their need to continually enhance their quality of work. Strategists do not have a strong tendency to complete. They need time to swirl ideas and often wait until the last second to fully develop an idea. Often they are seen by outsiders as someone lacking direction and drive, disorganized and flaky. Strategists work best under pressure hence their propensity to procrastinate. Their mantra—I can always make it better—trumps execution making the deadline irrelevant. If you want to see a strategist squirm, ask them their favorite color or favorite restaurant since for a strategist it depends on the day, the mood, who’s in the room, or where they ate yesterday. They tend to be stackers with everything out at their fingertips.

A powerful example of the need for both styles is the story of the Golden Gate Bridge paint color selection. The Navy was asked to provide input on a paint selection that would prevent ships from crashing into the bridge. Their choice: black and yellow stripes. It was plan A, it met  the criteria of keeping the bridge highly visible to oncoming ships, and was decided on or before deadline. The bridge designers had been brewing for a long while missing many due dates for a color scheme that would stand out against the ocean colors yet compliment the surrounding landscape. They finally chose orange vermillion, but only after the impending threat of the ‘bumblebee’ color choice that the Navy proposed and would be implemented by the deadline.  Alone the Strategists may still have an unpainted bridge because of all the color choices swirling around in their heads. Alone the Navy executors would have painted it yellow and black striped creating for them a satisfactory resolution for 1 purpose; keep ships from crashing into the bridge. Either choice would have spelled disaster—an unprotected bridge or an eyesore. Together they created a landmark so remarkable that it is one the most visited and photographed bridge in the world.
 

Great works are developed by using a mix of strategy and execution. Customizing your tactics and work environment—so the Felixes and the Oscars can work together productively—will elevate your business ideas from mediocre to remarkable.