How to build a strategy

Strategies are pretty tough to design and build - and often even harder to bring to life. Without a good strategy though, you often find energy and attention being diverted in all the wrong places and plenty of tactical moves misaligned within a company.

A strategy is essential to ensure all action, decisions and insights are aligned towards a clear direction of travel.

I'm old school and like to understand the exact meaning of words and so I spend a lot of time looking at the Etymology of words.

Strategy derives from Greek meaning something along the lines of "office or command of a general". Further morphed and changed over the years to round out to something similar to:

"That which spreads out. To lead"

Wow. That's a nice definition from the root word. And that's what a strategy in a business does; it spreads out and allow people to lead. It's why strategies typically come from leaders and managers; a guiding direction and organising structure that spreads across the business - and can be lead.

If you've sat the strengths finder as part of my Trinity of Career Development then you too may have strategy as a top strength. It's my top one and throughout my career I've crafted large and small strategies, refined existing ones, challenged many and seen my fair share of very poor strategies.

In this post I will share the three key principles I look for in a good strategy, why strategies fail and maybe some new ways to look at any given strategy you are presented with. There will be some extra resources to research, some diagrams and a poem (yes, a poem).

The poem is broken down into each rhyming verse where I explore each idea in turn.

This post is lengthy but well worth a portion of your day, and your energy and attention (in my opinion):

1. A poem
2. A story about poor strategy
3. Why strategies fail
4. The three principles I look for in a strategy (True North, Problems, Plans)
5. Some ideas on creating a strategy
6. Resources and links

Let's break it down.

What I include here is work I do at a company strategy level, but the same principles apply at team or department level.

And of course, building an entire product or company strategy is a LOT more involved than coming up with a strategy for your team.

But before we do that - here's a poem:

A strategy poem

This is a poem about strategic thinking that I created for a conference a few years back. It went down well. I even did a hiphop version with beats and everything.... that one will not be published anywhere 😄

Slow down, this ain’t no race.
Find your guiding data and find your place.
Paint the bright picture that you really want.
Focus on the content and not the font. 
Lean into the reality, turn and face.
Even if you created these problems in the first place.
Between the future and your reality is a gap that needs a plan.
Write down everything that needs doing - everything you can.
No matter what you write and what you plan to do.
Remember, your people need a plan too.
Be careful, it might come true.
Don’t plan for something you’re not prepared to do.
Now everything is in place it’s time to become Uber great
And learn how to share, learn how to communicate.
The acid test is that every person in your crew.
Knows exactly what their role is and what they need to do.
The future is uncertain even with a target in mind.
Routines, habits and discipline are what you now must find.
A strategy is action, you need to get things done.
A side effect of it working is plenty of fun.
Imagine you’re pulling a really heavy cart.
Like minded at the front and to those at the back, give feedback from the start

A short story about poor strategy

Strategy is pretty tough to get right. A few years ago I was part of a large software development team who had no idea what we were doing.

Sure, we knew our day to day actions, we had a backlog of work and we were building software. But, we didn't know why we were doing it. What was the larger purpose?

How was what we did aligned to the company goals, or our customers needs? Why was it worth doing the work, other than to get a salary?

We couldn't join the dots or work it out. It wasn't obvious. It felt like a never ending conveyor belt of work. We lacked purpose. It was soul destroying to have no way of connecting the dots between our day-to-day work and something bigger. Was this it; working purely to get paid and make the company a profit? (We weren't even making much money anyway.)

When it came to making decisions we had to defer almost everything upwards to managers because we lacked any overriding context about which decision (direction) was the right one. Even managers weren't sure whether a decision around tech, or implementation, or features, was in-line with a larger overhanging vision, purpose or strategy.

It was a tricky place to work - we had no clear direction other than the next set of features. With so many of us feeling listless and unsettled the management embarked on a retreat to a posh hotel to define a strategy.

After a few days they came back with a strategy. Well, they came back with a digital document with words in it.

They tried printing it but consumed so much paper that even HR got involved regarding a mis-use of company resources (true story).

They gave up on printing it and tried to email it around as a pre-read. It got blocked by the IT system because the file was so large. The document they created was enormous but they finally created a shared area to view it.

Clearly a lot of work had gone into it, but it was so dense that it clearly couldn't be summarised in a few words. Nobody could get through more than around 10 pages of it without passing out. We asked them to create a summary and present it in-person to the business.

They disappeared to a posh hotel for a few more days and came back with a presentation.

By this point the team had given up all hope that the leadership team knew what they were doing. However, on a cold, wet November morning we all huddled in the main auditorium for the deep, rich, exciting and motivating insights. What was the strategy?

To say it was underwhelming was an understatement.

Slide after slide of busy diagrams with too many words. Still no clear purpose or vision came through. No clarity. No alignment. No obvious way to tie our actions back to anything meaningful. No direction, no waypoints, no painted picture of how exciting this business could be. Corporate fluff lacking anything concrete.

We sensed they didn't believe it either. The presentations lacked any energy or conviction. It was a mess.

Pretty soon after this, the leadership team asked the staff to write the strategy. We declined en-mass making a clear point that directors are paid to direct - so they should do it.

And not long after this the company lost almost all of its market share and tanked. It's still running today but with a fraction of it's turnover, staff and market.

Why Strategies Fail

I'll outline here lessons from this story, plus other reasons I've seen, that contribute to failed strategies. This is not meant to be exhaustive, merely indicative. Business can be complex.

Standard Documents are not a strategy

I see plenty of strategies that are downloaded templates filled in by business leaders and managers. They download a template and get to work filling in the boxes without ever really thinking about why they are doing it and whether the pre-designed template was useful.

With a standard document comes a standard strategy. And likely very boring indeed. There's no thinking involved when someone else has guided what to put in boxes.

Templates may be helpful if you do the thinking as well. As I talk about in Take A Day Off book ; exceptional companies are an exception. Standards don't always help...other than to help you become standard.

The strategy is just dreams and wishes

Not a month goes by when I don't see a strategy that is nothing more than a dream or a wish. "We're going to be number 1". "We're going to provide the best service". "We're going to scale and sell for a £billion".

A strategy should have an element of dreams and aspirations, but it should be grounded in evidence with a plan (we'll come to that in a minute).

The strategy is the leader's personality in a document

Sometimes you see a strategy that is merely someone's personality codified into a document.

"Be aggressive", "dominate the market". Occasionally, I see a strategy that is just one sentence or a few words that succinctly sums up the leaders approach and personality.

"Die Trying" is my favourite. No thanks.

With this kind of attempt at a strategy you get no direction, no obstacles to overcome, no plan, nothing. How is "die trying" helpful when you're faced with tricky decisions about staffing or how to deal with customer issues?

The strategy is just a series of buzzwords

I often see strategies that are just a few plausible sounding buzzwords. "Speed", "effectiveness", "lower cost", "simplicity".

These vox-pop words are plausible and sound energising - and can be a useful shortcut to underpin a wider detailed strategy, but they don't help to galvanise direction around complicated or complex work.

Lack of research

Almost every strategy I see has a distinct lack of evidence, data insights, participation analysis etc etc. More often than not it's a strategy based on opinions rather than facts. And as Deming always said

"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion".

No True North

A lot of strategies have no emotional connective elements. They are often facts, strong sentences and plausible statements but nothing people can connect to.

Emotion and motion come from the same place - so it pays to ensure there are emotionally connective elements in the strategy; things people can hang onto, buy into, support and feel galvanised around. Stories work well here.

No obstacles nor plan

Often times I see strategies starting from magical places far away from where the business are. These strategies often sound like they've been written for a different company.

There are often few acknowledgements of the current reality of the business, nor any of the obstacles the business currently faces.

It's pretty tough to mobilise people around a strategy that sounds made up, or one that belongs to a completely different company.

It's not been communicated

A lot of strategies are good though. Don't get me wrong, we've been through some reasons why many suck, but many are also very good. The number one reason I see as to why a strategy is not coming to life is simply down to the fact that it's not been very well communicated.

It may have been circulated, broadcast and shared but that does not mean its been communicated. We'll come on to more about this in a bit.

Breaking down a strategy - the three core principles

When I do strategic work I lean heavily on guiding principles.

Principles mean we can check we're aligned to them but they don't describe how to structure, implement or action what sits below them.

In a sense, principles allow us to test that we have the right elements but we don't force a structure on, in this case, the strategy.

Almost all of my work is guided by principles. This leaves room for different ways of working, different opinions, contextual differences and the opportunity to learn. It removes the dogma and the rigid inflexible structure, but allows some form of constraints.

The guiding principles I have for the test of a good strategy are these three pillars:

1. A strategy should have an emotional painted picture of the future with clear goals.
   1. This should be compelling, interesting, exciting and inspiring. And it should describe who we are becoming as a company or team.
2. A strategy should identify and prioritise the major obstacles preventing us from achieving the bright picture painted above.
   1. It should be grounded in the current reality by leaning into the very things that are stopping the business achieving its bright future.
3. There should be a plan to overcome the problems.

Another way to look at this is to define a bright future for the business (based on evidence and aspiration) with goals, and then ask a simple question:

"If this future is so compelling and interesting, why are we not already there yet?"

The answers to this question highlight the obstacles and problems that must be overcome to achieve this future.

There is no point in merely listing obstacles and problems though - there needs to be a plan to overcome them. And that plan should have names, dates and goals.

If a strategy does not have a clear compelling painted picture (or True North, or Vision etc) for the future then it's not a strategy. If a strategy does not also have a list of obstacles preventing this bright future, then it's not a strategy. If a strategy does not also have a plan on how to overcome the obstacles, then it is not a strategy.

This is my simple guidance and the principles I use. There may be exceptions to this but I've yet to encounter them.

What typically happens is leaders come up with a bright future and business goals, but fail to identify the problems stopping them. The teams are then tasked with trying to build this bright future on-top of all the drama, problems and obstacles they are currently facing.

More work comes into the "system" on top of work that is hard to get through because of the obstacles. More work, more goals, more targets with no removal of friction.

Let's break down the poem to tackle each part of this:

Slow down, this ain’t no race.
Find your guiding data and find your place.

This is all about gathering evidence, insights and data. This is a tough part of building a strategy and depending on the type of business you're building, this could be wildly different to another company.

A few ideas to consider:

• What is the market data telling us?
• What is our own company data telling us (i.e. are there markets we need to grow, or regions we do well in?)
• Why do customers use our products or services?
• Why do customers leave?
• What are the industry leaders saying about our industry?
• What does our customer usage data tell us?
• Where should we participate, and with what? (Participation strategy)
• Which markets are in decline or growing etc?
• What do our customers tell us they want?
• What are our competition doing?
• What factors may affect our business (global, health, generational, technological)?
• Why do we exist as a company?
• Is our research "desk based" - i.e. internet research. Or coming from a research company? (And is their research desk-based 😄?)
• Emerging trends?
• Risks

In a sense, at this stage you're looking for inputs and data to analyse and draw conclusions from.

By doing this, you're ensuring the strategy you create is grounded in some evidence. You will never know all of the answers or have a complete set of data to guide you entirely, but without data you really are just another person with an opinion.

The goal at this point is to analyse and baseline - so you can then start planning the future.

Paint the bright picture that you really want.
Focus on the content and not the font. 

I use the term "painted picture" as a way to describe a document, image or set of slides that careful explains the "kind" of company/department you are aiming to cultivate. And it's not about the font its about the content.

This is not about solutions, or codifying projects, or listing products. This is about the kind of company you want to become. This is about "being" and it is the emotional connection people need to an organisation.

This is about dreaming. Dream big about the kind of company you want to create, what it would be like to work in it and what value you will bring to customers.

One way to consider this creative exercise is to ask a couple of leading questions for leaders:

1. What kind of company would you enjoy working in? This seems odd because leaders clearly do work within a company...but its easy to become removed from the day to day work and not understand how good/bad/indifferent it is to actually work in the business.
   1. (After all, Leaders should be working ON the business, not IN it).
2. What would you want your customers to say about your company, products and services?
3. If your company no longer existed, what gap would it leave in society or the marketplace?

This is not an easy step. It is a creative exercise that requires lateral thinking and brainstorming, then synthesising these ideas down into an emotional story or description.

Most people jump straight into defining buzzwords or using facts derived from the previous activity to start coming up with a strategy. Stories go where facts cannot, so think about how to tell a story about the future.

In a nutshell we are trying to get to the "why" here.

• Why does the company exist?
• What does all of the work in the organisation connect to?
• Why should people give their energy and attention to the business? (And if you answer here "so they get paid" it may be worth seeking out other articles on this site 😄)
• Why would customers choose us?
• Why is it so good to work here?
• Why should someone buy our service or product?
• What do people get when working here? (growth, personal development etc)
• Would society miss our organisation if it wasn't here? Why is that?
• What do we want to achieve?
• What do we want to be known for?

Once you've done the hard work here - and trust me, this is definitely a hard activity requiring plenty of creative space, insights, data, open-minds and reflection, you need to start thinking about goals.

I describe goals as mountains sitting in front of the painted picture or True North.

You may have a series of goals across a variety of dimensions:

1. Grow our market share in Australia with Product X by 10% by June 2025
2. Decrease costs by 5% across all regions by December 10th 2024
3. Simplify our delivery process - reduce cost to serve by £1million by April 23rd 2025
4. Grow the company headcount by 1500 people by December 2025
5. Build a learning culture in the organisation by March 23rd 2026 (nebulous goal - needs breaking down)

As you can see most of these goals are measurable, they are time bound, and they could realistically come from a decent painted picture.

The painted picture itself will include rich words and visuals to describe the kind of company you are becoming. A safe place to work; a workplace that enriches the lives of all who work in it; a first choice for customers because of excellent customer service; a low cost to serve; a company to grow the next generation of people; etc.

Goals are how you move towards this bright future. Goals are just one part of it. They are the steps towards that bright future. Goals are hard to create. The painted picture is even harder.

One way I use to describe the painted picture and goals is to image the painted picture as the Sun, or a star, or a True North. It's hard to reach, and in fact, you may never reach it but it's something to aspire towards.

Standing in front of the True North or Painted Picture are some mountains. You can see these mountains. You can climb them. You can go over them and down the other side. These mountains are your goals. And when you achieve them you see more mountains in front of your painted picture or True North. More goals. More mountains.

With the painted picture you're aiming for a perfect brilliant company adding huge value to your customers, whilst enriching the lives of all who work in it. But you'll likely never reach it. That's the journey. It sounds painful and tedious but it's the reality of a company staying relevant and adding value. It's the journey that matters towards this bright future.

The goals are how you set milestone or waypoints towards this bright future. Goals are the stepping stone.

Of course, you may reach your True North or painted picture. Brilliant. Write another one and make this one a little harder to achieve.

Lean into the reality, turn and face.
Even if you created these problems in the first place.

This is a bit chicken and egg really. In order to create a suitable painted picture, you kind of need to have some idea about your current reality. Equally, you don't want to constrain your thinking too much. It's a fine balance hence I include this part here about leaning into problems AFTER the creation of a painted picture.

At this point I would NOT communicate anything outside of the team building the strategy. So, there's no harm in going back to refactor the painted picture. In fact, if you aren't tweaking it after leaning into your current reality - you're likely doing something wrong. It's an iterative process.

We need to be careful not to water the painted picture down based on our current reality, but we also want to be sure we're not creating a painted picture for a different company. Managing that tension is part of this process. Think big but make it somewhat realistic.

In this part of the process we do various techniques to answer the simple question posed earlier:

"If our painted picture is so compelling, interesting and exciting, why are we not already there yet?"

Or another way to ask this question.

"What's stopping us achieving our painted picture tomorrow?"

In order to hit any ambitious goal or target we absolutely need to know where we currently are. We do this to ensure the actions we take are from where we are now.

It's like a road trip. If we want to get to Sheffield, Yorkshire, England we can paint a vivid picture of what we'll do there and how much fun it will, and all the sites we'll see. However, if we don't know where we currently are then no vision, roadmap or set of goals will be instructive.

We need to know where we currently are. And that means leaning into our currently reality no matter how painful this may be.

Many leaders don't do this. They ignore the current reality and set off on a journey from a different place to where they are - and wonder why nothing is working.

They create a strategy to go from Southampton to Sheffield without leaning into the fact they're in Norwich.

It's hard to do this because let's face it, the current reality is a result of the leaders and everyone in the business.

If it's not a pretty place to be, it's the leaders' fault. If it's painful to lean into the current reality, its because its an act of self reflection - and that is hard. Even harder when the current reality is a mess.

But it's essential so that the strategy is leading people in the right direction. Humility is essential here, as are facts. Keeping this part of the creative process grounded in facts helps to remove subjectivity, some emotions and blame. It is essential that leaning into the current reality is not a blame game.

A current reality tree is helpful.

Once we know where we want to go and have a painted picture, simply give everyone in the leadership team a pen and ask them to write down what is stopping them.

• If we're trying to grow in a market, what is stopping us?
• If we're trying to grow our staff base, what is making it hard?
• If we're trying to outpace the competition, what is preventing that?
• If we're losing staff because they hate the company, why is that?
• If we're struggling to remain relevant in the market, why is that?

If you do this activity on a white board or mural you'll end up with a laundry list of reasons, excuses and obstacles.

In my experience, most of the items listed will be symptoms of an underlying root cause. Try to work out which ones are symptoms and which ones are root causes. This is a hard activity to do.

Connect similar symptoms together with simple lines. Re-write/re-locate the root causes at the bottom of the diagram. Connect all symptoms associated with the root cause to the root cause item using lines.

At the end it will look like a tree with root causes at the bottom and lots of lines connecting symptoms to them. Hence the term "current reality tree". Here's a good article on creating a basic reality tree.

If you have no evidence to substantiate the obstacles raised, then you may need further research. Remember, we're after facts and evidence, not opinions.

This exercise can be hard but after you've done this you'll likely have a series of root causes - the underlying problems. These will guide your actions. Solving the root causes is the goal - not merely addressing the symptoms.

Let's say you want to grow X% in a region but have identified a few excuses and a root cause - you don't have enough sales people in the market. You have an action item right there for the plan.

Let's say you want to recruit by the end of the year but it currently takes ages. Maybe you need to fine tune, revamp and streamline recruitment. An action item for your plan there.

You get the idea - what problems need solving? What is stopping you achieving your goals? What stands between now and the painted picture of the future?

Between the future and your reality is a gap that needs a plan.
Write down everything that needs doing - everything you can.

Tied to above - you're going to need a plan. This is the third principle of a good strategy.

We've covered a clear direction of travel and the painted picture which is the first of the three principles. The second is the need to lean into the current reality and identify problems and obstacles stopping you achieving this bright future.

The third is now the formulation of a plan to address the problems.

As above, when you lean into a problem you get insights, data and evidence, which should be used to come up with the plan.

List everything that needs doing; that revamped HR recruitment process; that lack of sales people in the market; that poor and slow delivery process that needs addressing; those low performers who are bringing down the team; that new function that is needed to bring marketing into the modern world.

Whatever needs doing needs listing.

At this point its worth highlighting that the things you list here are not simple action items - they are projects in their own right.

Revamping a HR recruitment process is a big project. List it. List everything whether a massive project in its own right, or simple improvements.

Everything on your list should be tackling something that is stopping you from achieving your goals.

This is an important point. There are always more problems in a business than we can ever tackle. So, it's important that you only tackle the problems that are preventing you reaching your painted picture.

It can be tempting to tackle the fun, interesting, shiny problems, but these are typically the symptoms, and many may have no added value towards your painted picture when solved.

The kind of problems you will be identifying are what I call "systemic problems".

They have typically been hanging around for years and not being solved. Most people in the business will have been complaining about them for years.

These problems will typically cut across functional boundaries in the organisation. This is precisely why leaders should be identifying these problems and coming up with a plan - because they, and their teams, are going to have to cooperate and collaborate to solve them in their entirety.

Most people, when I do this exercise, complain that everything listed is yet more work to do on top of business as usual.

It is.

But if you've done the process thoroughly, this should be work that unlocks massive potential. This work will solve systemic problems that are slowing people down. This work should remove the sh*t that everyone is complaining about in the business. This work will release business agility; as in, it will help you move smoothly and quickly towards your goals.

This is more work, but it is work that is aligned to a clear direction. It is work that needs to be done if the business is to achieve its goals.

A lot of people want to run from this and continue with Business As Usual. But Business As Usual (fighting problems, solving symptoms and not root causes, red tape, friction) is what's stopping most leaders from achieving their goals.

You must find ways to reduce waste, stop non-essential work (there's typically plenty of that in the workplace), cancel non-value add projects or projects with minimal effectiveness, delegate more to others, work on achieving flow, deal with low performers and a whole host of other activities that give space, energy, time and attention to overcoming these obstacles.

I worked with one company who had zero visibility of all of the work 1000+ people were doing. As part of their strategy they needed more company focus on new markets but they had no idea how much work was in the system. They asked for more from people but everything was grinding to a slow down. They were pushing more work into the system and the system was pushing back (it often does that). As part of this strategy exercise I ran with them, they realised a problem they needed to solve was visibility and priority of work.

They identified this as a blocker and resolved to put a plan in place. I explained to them about containers and rules, and after some analysis they settled on a tool that EVERYONE had to use.

They stopped a few low value projects and diverted their most talented communicators into a central team.

Through their influence, networks and winning charm they got every single piece of work into a single work management tool. From this they were then able to identify LOTS of projects that needed stopping. They identified bottlenecks, teams who were overloaded and ultimately, they could then put all work next to each other at a portfolio and project level - and make decisions around which ones really mattered.

It changed their business as they finally had clarity over everything that was being done. They'd ignored this problem for years in the hope that some form of natural communication, alignment and collaboration would happen. It didn't. Not until they made it a strategic priority. They could then move forward from a known place.

Finding time, energy and attention in our busy work is why leaders are paid what they are paid. They must lead, make hard decisions about work and ultimately decide where to invest company money, resources and people.

In my experience, when space is created to overcome obstacles and problems, the business always benefits. As long as those problems are on the path to the painted picture.

No matter what you write and what you plan to do.
Remember, your people need a plan too.

Most strategies ignore the people in their organisation. Leaders often come up with robust painted pictures that don't include any element of people or culture. We covered how to avoid this above by focusing on what it's like to work in your company.

When it comes to obstacles very few leaders ever call out low performance, even though that is often a major problem in many companies. And most leaders focus on a plan and roadmap for products, tech, market share, sales, but your people need a plan too.

The plan should include elements of enriching the workplace, growing capability, learning and development, perks and outcomes for staff, dealing with low performance and elements around growing a more positive work culture.

With quiet quitting, the great resignation and low engagement it's essential that there is a part of the plan for people.

This could be as simple as asking every leader to identify those in their teams who are ready for the next challenge in their careers (and trust me, a lot of managers and leaders don't know who these people are 😦). And then giving these people one of these problem solving streams to own with leadership support.

It could be as simple as reviewing the benefits employees get and increasing the rewards, or offering more diversity in the rewards package. It could be about developing a mentoring scheme to bring through the best talent. It may be a basic management 101 course for managers to truly get to know their staff better.

Whatever it is, your people need a plan too.

Be careful, it might come true.
Don’t plan for something you’re not prepared to do.

I sometimes see people planning immense outcomes, goals and painted pictures that require investment, or require giving proceeds to charity, or dominating markets, where the side effect of the opportunity is an immense set of corresponding problems.

Remember, an opportunity and a problem are opposite sides of a coin.

When we open up an opportunity we bring new problems. When we solve problems we open opportunities - which in turn bring new problems. It's a cycle, so be careful to think through the consequences.

Paul Hawken, in his excellent book, Growing a Business, talks about a failing company he was helping. The leaders stated that when they succeed they will give a portion of profits to charity. When that time came they had second thoughts because it was profit they were giving away. They rescinded on their promise! Poor indeed.

So, think through carefully what you want as a business - and the side effects and consequences, because what you want may indeed arrive.

Now everything is in place it’s time to become Uber great
And learn how to share, learn how to communicate.

You should now have the three pillars of a good strategy:

1. A clear vision, True North or Painted Picture with goals (mountains).
2. An evidence backed list of obstacles that need addressing.
3. A plan to address the obstacles with names and dates etc.

Now you need to work out how to communicate this. Start with the 11 principles of communication, paying particular attention to the fact that communication is what other people do.

Broadcasting your new strategy in a presentation at a company event is a good first step. But it's likely not communicated to everyone. Follow up emails, intranet posts, internal social media posts, town halls and other face to face meetings are essential.

Every manager should be rippling down the comms using a clear playbook and consistent messaging.

Opportunities for questions, feedback and clarity must be provided.

Communicating the strategy is an ongoing, repetitive process. Talk of the strategy should be weaved into everything everyone does. All work should align to it, or be explicitly explained why it is not in line with the strategy.

Your goal is to morph the entire organisation towards a new vision and new goals. Everything below the vision will change, twist, modify and move to support the strategy. People should know how to question day-to-day work in light of the strategy.

Use visuals - a picture tells a thousand words. Remember that everyone is different so ensuring you cater to those differences in the way you communicate is essential. Try using different mediums and different ways of communicating. Learn what work and what does not. And keep going.

Tie all work to the strategy and make it clear how everyone is contributing to something bigger than themselves. Bigger than you as a leader or manager.

Tell stories, be vulnerable, build a communication plan and give feedback to anyone who is not communicating clearly about the strategy.

If you have silent plotters (people who nod and say they like the strategy but go back to their teams and say the opposite) give them feedback and ask for better.

Keep communicating. More communication is not the goal - effective communication is, so keep learning and improving how you, and your team, communicate about the strategy.

The acid test is that every person in your crew.
Knows exactly what their role is and what they need to do.

One way to test if your strategy communication plan is working, is to ask people about the strategy. Everyone should know what it is. Not just the buzzwords and titles of the slides, but the actual strategy. Everyone should know how their work ties to the strategy.

Managers should be ensuring work is aligned and people understand the bigger picture. Field questions, challenge assumptions, listen intently and ask people whether they're clear how their work connects to everyone else.

And yes, you will find competing sub-goals within the organisation but that's your job as a manager or leader to find these and sort them out. Clarity, alignment and action is the goal.

The future is uncertain even with a target in mind.
Routines, habits and discipline are what you now must find.

After the initial enthusiasm about the strategy dies down it becomes the hard slog of bringing it to life. This is where the ups and downs of business happen. There will be highs and lows. Ups and downs.

Therefore it pays to focus on building robust processes and structure that will lead to success. People balk at the idea of process but good process means people can make decisions easily, complete work with minimal friction and focus their energy on value add work.

When people follow a process it's also an opportunity to study the process and optimise it. If people follow a good process then they get good work done - and as it's aligned to the strategy, this good work should be adding value to the business.

There are processes for getting work done in all companies, whether they are made explicit or not. All we're doing here is drawing attention to the process, studying it, optimising it and improving it. Or getting rid of obsolete and unhelpful process.

You will see huge gains when the processes are optimised through the lens of strategy. It no longer becomes someone's "preferred system" and instead is a system, routine or process that delivers business value against the strategy.

It takes a while to build habits, new ways of working and new processes but if you can tie the process to the strategy, goals and outcomes, you can show people how effective this can be.

Most agility or continuous improvement folk play a lot here. They optimise processes and structure to make work flow smoothly and quickly. This is great but not if you have the wrong people, overcoming the wrong problems, heading in the wrong direction.

When a process doesn't work - fix it. The goal with this work is to be effective first - and then efficient. It doesn't matter if the process is slow and cumbersome as long as its effective. Once you have a process that works, optimise it. Staple yourself to it - and improve it.

There comes a point when it's optimised enough. Move on. There will be plenty of processes to work on.

Some areas to play:

• Recruitment process
• Financial approval process
• Path to live
• Expenses!
• HR performance management process
• Project initiation process
• Ways of work - agility flow process
• And many many more.

This is a rich area for improvement - all in service of the strategy.

A strategy is action, you need to get things done.
A side effect of it working is plenty of fun.

A documented strategy is good. A communicated strategy is better. A strategy brought to life through action is perfect.

And an acid test I use is whether people are having fun.

If people are working in a system that is being actively improved with time carved out to overcome obstacles, they will be facing less friction. When they face less friction and see how their work (and other people's work) is leading towards something bigger than themselves, then they will have fun.

Sure, there will be challenges, politics, disagreements and hard work - but the spirit in the company becomes one of clarity and cooperation. It's clear what people are doing and how they contribute. There's alignment towards the painted picture.

A side effect is engagement, fun, joy and spirit. You don't need to measure this with employee engagement surveys; you can see it, feel it, sense it.

Paul Hawken again says that fun is like a canary in a coal mine. When people aren't having fun, you've got something very wrong indeed.

We won't be having fun every day, but there should be an overall sense of joy. If not, something's not working.

A team mobilised behind, motivated for and mindful of the bigger picture, is a team in motion; a team overcoming obstacles, driving towards a bright picture and aligned around a common purpose. Fun will follow. Not forced fun. Not mandated fun, but a side effect from gaining clarity, alignment and frictionless action.

Imagine you’re pulling a really heavy cart.
Like minded at the front and to those at the back, give feedback from the start

Yes, there will be some people who are not on-board. There will be some people pulling in the opposite direction. Yes, there will be some who just don't engage.

But to move people into motion, you need them to feel something. Ideally, that's the fun vibes, clarity, alignment and galvanised view of the painted picture. But sometimes, they need to feel the challenge and insights from feedback. Feedback about their behaviours and about the effect they are having on the bigger team.

They need to know it's not acceptable. They need to feel like they cannot keep bringing down the team and slowing progress. They need to feel uncomfortable when they go against the system of work. And this is done by managers giving feedback and asking for better. Performance management is typically woefully bad in many companies because it means having hard conversations.

What's the alternative? You let a few people bring down an entire team?

Some managers wait for performance to drop so they can have that hard conversation. The best managers head this off before it gets to that point. Feedback is key. And it needs to be given as soon as the dysfunctional behaviours begin.

Close Out

There you have it; my consulting approach to strategic thinking and planning. I love a good strategy but it's hard to do. It's hard to paint a picture using emotional language, aspirational thinking and deep critical analysis.

It's hard to lean into the current reality and embrace the carnage that may be there. It's hard to build a plan and carve out space to action it.

It's hard to communicate clearly and passionately. It's hard to align work around a common goal. It's hard to align processes and improve them. It's hard to bring people together and build a plan for them.

But it's worth it.

The sheer clarity that comes from having a clear direction with good goals is immeasurable. The alignment that comes from morphing the system of work behind these goals frees people to focus on overcoming problems.

If you get the strategy right and you weave it into the very fabric of the business you should see value being released, insights coming from the work that help you make strategic pivots and the positive side effect of fun, engagement and high retention of good people.

And one final test. Try printing your strategy - and if it consumes all of the paper in your office, it's too detailed.

A few pages of A4 should be all it takes to define a bright future, list some clear goals, identify a plan with actions and write out a basic communication plan.

Bibliography

1. Hawken, P., 1987. Growing a Business. Simon & Schuster, New York.
2. Rumelt, R., 2011. Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The difference and why it matters, Main edition. ed. Profile Books.
3. The 4 Levels Of Strategy: The Difference & How To Apply Them [WWW Document], n.d. URL - https://www.cascade.app/blog/strategy-levels (accessed 7.16.24).
4. Making the Future Visible: Psychology, Scenarios, and Strategy - Hardin Tibbs, 2021 [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/19467567211014557 (accessed 7.16.24).
5. What is Current Reality Tree? [WWW Document], n.d. URL https://online.visual-paradigm.com/knowledge/problem-solving/what-is-current-reality-tree/ (accessed 7.16.24).