Why does strategy fail? Quite often, it’s because strategy was never communicated. As with most organizations, the top leadership or senior leadership or Ex-co team meets, drafts strategy, gets aligned on strategy, returns to work and is surprised that no one else shares the same fire. In the end, you have an energy mismatch, a frustration on the part of the Senior leadership, but also for the rest of the organization.
The senior leadership doesn’t understand why people can’t implement the strategy; the people do not understand what they are being asked to implement. Thus, as important as formulation of strategy, so is the actual communication plan for the strategy. Strategy must be demystified all the way to the shop floor level. Everyone in the organization should be aligned on the thing that is being done, and why it’s being done.
The security guard in the organization should be able to articulate what exactly they are doing in service to the organizational strategy. The front-desk personnel should know that as well, all the way to the finance teams.
One of the ways to communicate strategy is through culture. And that’s from the rituals, the symbols, the language in the company, the stories in the company, the events, the meetings, all these things that build into culture help to communicate strategy.
Another way to communicate strategy is through leadership. There’s the performative aspect of leadership and this should always be used to communicate strategy. If the strategy dictates that going forward, every extra mile counts, leadership should be seen in service to this ideal of the extra mile.
Strategy should always be communicated, demystified, emphasized and over-emphasized. There’s nothing like over-communication of strategy but under-communication. It’s only in communication where over-communication is a virtue, it’s something worth pursuing. Over-communicate your strategy. Do not worry that it will leak to your competition. If you are worried that your strategy will leak, then you do not have a strategy. Strategy is that which is uniquely about your organization, only your organization is in position to implement it.
If you remember one thing, just one thing about strategy and ensuring it works, it’s that over-communicating strategy will ensure that however bad your strategy is, at least it will get implemented!