Most strategies don’t fail because they’re bad ideas. They fail because execution breaks down where it matters most.
In Season 2, Episode 10 of Frontline Fridays, host Ron Thurston sits down with Kevin Ertell, CEO of Mistere Advisory and a veteran operator with more than 30 years of experience across brands like Nike, Tower Records, and Sur La Table, to unpack why execution is where strategies so often stall, and how field leaders can change that.
Drawing on a career that began on the shop floor and led to global retail leadership, Kevin introduces The Six Cs of Execution, a practical playbook designed to help leaders bring clarity to complexity and turn strategy into daily action. He explains why execution is always a people challenge before it’s a process one, why leaders need to slow down to speed up, and how co-creation, clarity, and capacity set the stage for success long before rollout begins.
Ron and Kevin dig into the reality of frontline leadership, from navigating the “messy middle” between headquarters and stores to building alignment across functions, communicating under pressure, and coaching teams through constant change. They explore why most rollouts fail in the handoffs, how to create shared ownership on the floor, and what field leaders can do every day to make strategy stick.
If you’ve ever watched a well-intentioned initiative unravel once it reached stores, or felt the gap between ambition and reality on the frontline, this episode offers a grounded, experience-led framework for closing the execution gap.
The Six Cs of Execution: A Playbook for Field Leaders — Frontline Fridays, Season 2, Episode 10 is available now.
🎧 Watch on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrohqoj-V_gskdgonZVHPSVNYO0K2mtpO
👤 Kevin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinertell/
👤 Ron:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronthurston/
💡 YOOBIC:https://yoobic.com |https://www.linkedin.com/company/yoobic/
