Dear Leaders,
It’s coming towards the end of the Summer here in the UK which typically means it’s long term planning and/or annual planning review cycle. This is likely the second time you are not in the board room or in a basement of a hotel planning your company’s future.
From recent feedback, many are finding asynchronous or hybrid planning sessions a challenge.
There are common questions that are being asked within businesses that leadership teams (and senior management teams) rarely address, through not knowing these questions that are being asked, but, also because the management team is not connecting to the “floor” and are rarely delivering Q&A to the business.
The usual questions being asked are:
- What is our strategy?
– This happens multiple times a year - Why are we doing what we do?
– This is usually a follow up to what is the strategy?
Or we do not support the strategy still - What does success actually look like?
– A list of targets rarely helps employees to understand what success is and how to build towards it.
The word that stands out above the rest but confuses so many people within businesses is: STRATEGY
Strategy can mean so many things to so many people, everything became strategic.
I have recently experienced every team in a large department creating their own ‘strategy’. That was nine (yes 9) different teams, within one department with their own “strategies” that did not connect at all!
FYI: This is not ‘strategy’, these are actually plans of action, that should roll up to departmental action plans, rolling up into the company-wide strategy. (see image below)
The reason I am being so pedantic and why being deliberate is so important; when everyone has a ‘strategy’, the company strategy is commonly ignored and is then questioned as soon as there are disagreements or performance dips.
On the Focus blog, I recently wrote a detailed post about the difference between mission, vision, strategy and tactics.
The TLDR framework explainer I used for strategy in this framework:
- Operating Principle: Strategy
- Explainer: One company-wide plan for everyone within the business to understand, everybody throughout the company should be able to repeat without any thought and all departments follow when crafting their own plans.
No team or department should deviate from the strategy.- Your Company Strategy build should be thought about in this simple way:
- 💭 Think: 5 Years
- 🗺 Plan: 3 Years
- 📦 Deliver: 1 Year ahead
- It is imperative: No department should have its own strategy.
- Your Company Strategy build should be thought about in this simple way:
- When To Review Strategy: Up to twice per year
- When To Change Strategy: Once a year, every year
It is well worth reading what is mission, vision, strategy and tactics framework.
The mentioned issues are why you have to be so precise and deliberate with your company or organisations plans.
Are You Struggling?
Run A Strategic Audit Recommendation: If you struggle with strategy or how to answer what your company-wide strategy is, what I recommend regularly is running a strategy audit and then creating a one-pager to reexplain your company-wide strategy to the company.
This newsletter is to help guide you through your leadership journey, if you consider yourself a decision-maker within your business, it should be part of your role to improve your company and introducing and creating frameworks and guides for your teams to follow to be successful within your department and the wider company.
And, importantly, when team members move on to the next challenge.
Help those around you build the team and departmental action plans and roll them up into the actual company-wide strategy.
If you do not have a company-wide strategy or struggle with them or get gain buy-in, get in touch today.
Thanks and have a great week.
Danny Denhard