1. Culture is the beating heart
Peter Drucker famously said that culture eats strategy for breakfast.
In my experience this holds true: because culture is human; and strategy is not - unless of course, you deliberately design it as such. The way to ensure that your strategy comes alive and thrives, is to create a strategy with culture and humans at the heart. Whilst this takes time and effort, it is worth doing right, with mountains of statistics and stories showing the clear link between organisational culture and performance.
If you have the luxury of designing a strategy from scratch, you’re in a great position as you can create the culture that you want. If you’re reviewing your existing culture, the best place to start is by reviewing the systems, symbols and behaviours that are alive within the organisation, and ensure they are supporting the actions and behaviours that you value in your organisation. This ranges from recruitment and decision-making policies, through to performance management, reward and remuneration processes, right through to the size and location of a leader’s office. Don’t forget to carefully investigate the accepted norms from leaders and role models, looking out for the hidden messages that they send (these are examples of cultural symbols).
Some examples to consider:
I’ll get rewarded for selling the most widgets this month
Potential message: It doesn’t matter how you achieve that result…as long as you sell the most.
It’s difficult to access to training around here
Potential message: We don’t care about your skills development.
My boss is always late to our one-on-ones
Potential message: My time and work is more important than yours; your development isn’t important..
If the systems and symbols are not in line with the messages you want to send – review and re-design them. If the behaviours are not in line with the message you want to send – tracing the leaders and provide frameworks to support them.
A great way to reinforce the core messages of your culture, and support employees in making good decisions – is to include core organisational values in the strategy. The role of values is to describe the personality of the organisation, letting people know how we do things around here. Values should be carefully crafted, well described in behavioural terms, and regularly reinforced. More than a poster on the wall, the values should come to life across the organisation, and be embedded in areas such as the performance management framework, decision-making processes, and communications.
2. All stakeholders count
A great strategy is more than ‘top-down’. It should:
a) include input from all stakeholders, and;
b) show how it benefits all stakeholders.
To make this happen, consult broadly in the strategy analysis and design phase:
- Learn from employees – what are they telling you in employee engagement surveys and exit interviews? What’s the water cooler (or virtual coffee catchup) talk?
It’s easy to get a representative focus group together to hear their thoughts (and has the added benefit of showing the team that you’re listening). - Listen to the voice of your customers – what are they telling you in surveys? What complaints or compliments are coming through? What are they saying on social media?
Leaders and decision-makers should regularly spend time with the customer. Go to your stores. Review customers’ online purchasing behaviour. Go out with the sales or consulting team. Whatever it takes – know your customer and what they want and need from you. Be clear on how you can add value to their lives (which is very different to selling your product or service) - Understand the strategies of your organisation’s business partners and suppliers, and be clear how you fit in to those plans (and vice versa)
- Listen to the Board (or owners) and their needs. It’s important to understand their driving factors, which will likely include monetary results as well as risk mitigation and governance. When talking with the board, encourage them to truly know the ins and outs of the business – not just the facts and figures in the reports
- Listen to shareholders and their desires for the company. Read the news and blogs and check out the various shareholder apps and websites to understand the shareholder sentiment. Being well informed allows you to be well prepared for your investor interactions.
- Take a proactive approach to the largest stakeholder group of any organisation: our community and the planet. If you don’t have a genuine plan for sustainability and engaging with the community, you’re behind the benchmark, and right now is the time to start taking this seriously. This part of the remit is vast, and ranges from topics such as diversity and inclusion, and engagement with community groups; through to environmental planning and disaster management.
Once you have the voice of your stakeholders, you’re in a great position to put your strategy into action, making sure that there is value for all stakeholders.
3. Close the loop
Speaking of outcomes for all – a great strategy must align throughout the organisation, vertically and horizontally. To achieve vertical alignment, the strategy and goals must be cascaded to every team member, so that each person knows their role in the future of the organisation, and what they can do to help achieve the goals. Role descriptions and key result areas should be aligned from the CEO to the front-line team member, and everyone in between.
To achieve horizontal alignment, it’s effective to have shared goals across divisions and departments. It’s even more effective to have cross-functional teams work on shared problems together. This can really galvanise a team to work together, rather than in competition with one another.
Once the team is working towards the same goals, the next step is to…
4. Communicate, communicate, communicate
Start with a high level plan on a page – something that shows all stakeholders a summarised version of the strategy, including:
- Mission or Vision – what you want to achieve
- Purpose – why you are here
- Values – how things are done around here
- Pillars or drivers – three to five core elements of the plan
Try to make this one-pager visually appealing and in line with your desired culture. Use colours and images and as few words as possible. Communicate this plan on a page as often as you can, to as many audiences as you can, constantly tying actions back to the strategy so each stakeholder receives reinforcement of the bigger picture.
Supporting the plan, you’ll need:
- A detailed document that covers the end-to-end strategy, including a market analysis, financial overview, risks, issues, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, and details about the core elements of the plan. This document could can be used with the leadership team, board and various committees. I suggest a visual pack, created from PowerPoint, Keynote, Canva or something similar.
- A five-year financial plan, with a detailed view on the financial goals of the business, and how they will be achieved. This should cascade into a plan for each financial year, which then gets divided into quarterly and monthly plans for each team within the business.
- A program of work, which gives an overview the key projects, activities and initiatives that are required to deliver the goals. I often create a one-page overview of the 12 months ahead, with projects, timelines and key outcomes. This plan should be referred to in regular management and board reports, to reinforce the horizontal alignment and remind everyone where the priorities should lie.
- Individual plans for each part of the program of work, which should be owned by each business and project owner (not just the project team). There are countless ways to bring this to life – spreadsheets, PowerPoint packs, MS Project schedules, Trello Boards, SharePoint or Teams sites, and many more)
I hope these 4 Steps to a Strategy that Sticks demonstrate that strategy is not as daunting as it might first sound. You don’t have to be “strategic” to create a great strategy. Even more than that, I hope that you love turning strategy into action as much as I do.
Meet the author
Rebecca McLeod
Rebecca McLeod is an experienced executive and management consultant with deep capabilities in creating and implementing business strategies that deliver a measurable impact for all stakeholders. She works with small businesses through to large corporates, across a wide range of industries, with capabilities ranging from strategy development, organisational effectiveness and change management through to marketing and communications. Her sweet spot is turning strategy into action and results.
