"It’s a dirty little secret: Most executives cannot articulate the objective, scope, and advantage of their business in a simple statement. If they can’t, neither can anyone else," indicate David J. Colliss and Michael G. Rukstad in the opening of their article, "Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?" in the April, 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review.

In an MBA class on Project Management that I am currently teaching, this topic came up in the context of the role that project managers play in strategy execution.  This class of working professionals agreed that strategy execution is conducted largely via projects, yet it is uncommon for individuals in project management roles to be plugged into the strategic management process.  As such, there is little context for many of the critical decisions that arise in the form of executing major projects.  In my informal poll of the class participants, there was additional consensus that most organizations do a less than stellar job communicating strategy to the broader employee population.

Collis and Rukstad in this great article (worth the price of the issue for the helpful guidance on some key strategy issues) submit that the best performing companies are great at communicating and enculturating strategy in the organization.  Alternatively, they state, "companies that don’t have a simple and clear statement of strategy are likely to fall into the sorry category of those that have failed to execute their strategy or, worse, those that never even had one. In an astonishing number of organizations, executives, front line employees, and all those in between are frustrated because no clear strategy exists for the company or its lines of business."

My own experience in business has convinced me that many (perhaps most) organizations do not have any form of organized strategy or strategy program and those that do are generally poor at embedding the strategy into the minds, vocabularies and actions of the broader organization. (I discuss this in detail in my post: Is Your Organization Strategy-Fueled or Strategy-Starved?)

It’s not necessarily clear to me why otherwise capable leaders and executives allow this situation to persist, other than the fact that it takes a lot of hard work, focus and discipline to realize a strategy-focused, strategy-fueled culture.  If it’s not fear of hard work or preoccupation with the urgent unimportant, then perhaps it’s two of the most significant adversaries of all: ignorance and apathy.  Borrowing from the immortal words of Yul Brenner as the King of Siam to sum up this situation, "It’s a puzzlement."

While I likely won’t cure the strategy-starved phenomena via this blog post (I’ll help do that one client at a time!), there are a few suggestions that when applied will absolutely help improve performance and perhaps catalyze the beginning of a culture change around strategy: 

  • In addition to regularly reviewing organizational performance, top executives must create forums with all varieties of individuals and roles to discuss market factors and what they might mean for the business.  You don’t need expensive strategy consultants on retainer to start having strategic conversations with your associates.  Your employees want to be involved in these discussions and you will be pleasantly surprised how many great insights you will uncover in the process.
  • Talk is cheap and actions create value.  The forums above will identify ideas and opportunities for operating improvements and even new products and services.   It’s up to an organization’s leaders to create simple processes for capturing, vetting and ultimately acting on value-creating ideas.  There is no value creation unless you have the means of turning ideas into actions.  (Reference my recent blog post: How do Ideas Turn Into Actions…)
  • As discussions and programs take root, it become clear that a more organized strategy program will benefit the organization.  It’s not a big leap from regular discussions around market forces, competitors, internal analysis of performance etc. to creating an organized program for vetting and distilling these issues into a program that includes assessment, initiative identification/prioritization, execution and on-going monitoring and refinement.  Hmmm., this is starting to sound like a Strategy-fueled culture!
  • As grass roots work expands, senior leadership must redouble efforts to clarify and communicate vision (our envisioned future state) and business definition (who are we and who do we serve, with what and how/where?).  These seemingly lofty strategy terms are actually very straightforward and powerful tools for providing context, creating focus and inspiring action.  (Many executives avoid dealing with these topics due to their seemingly abstract, kind-of squishy nature.  Also, many organizations have worked hard to wordsmith visions and missions that have failed to elicit changes.  They lose sight of the fact that the well-worded statements are just the beginning of a lot of work, not the end.)
  • As John Kotter indicates in his classic "Eight Stages for Leading Change," you must communicate the vision for change constantly.  You cannot over-communicate with your employees when you are working to create a Strategy-fueled culture.

The bottom-line:

Like any situation requiring change, recognition is the first step.  It’s critical for leaders to recognize that organizations that broadly understand their strategy and employees that specifically understand how their activities and decisions impact strategy execution are going to defeat less-enlightened competitors.  Strategy is not an abstract concept reserved for the deep-thought thinking sessions of senior leaders. Strategy is a powerful leadership tool to engage the hearts and minds of associates and to fuel performance.  It’s time to wake up and start talking and acting on fueling your organization via strategy.