If the work you care about and prioritise isn\u2019t delivering at least one of your strategic goals, then what you have isn\u2019t a strategy. It\u2019s just an aspiration. If you want to know what the real strategy is, look at the work.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sometimes invited to help develop strategies for clients, but more often than not the request is really to help make the strategy happen. Sometimes this is proactive; change is needed to meet a new challenge, and savvy leaders are looking for the most effective ways to engage people in the strategic direction. Sometimes it\u2019s reactive; the strategy has been in place for a while, but progress is slow or non-existent. The status quo hangs on stubbornly while the strategy is gathering dust on a shelf.<\/p>\n
To address this, the first thing I do is assess that strategy by looking at two things.<\/p>\n
Firstly, I look at the goals, objectives and values of the organisation. These are the things most leaders will show you if you ask them to describe their strategy. It\u2019s the thing they\u2019ll create when they want to set a direction for their company. At this point, I\u2019m not planning to question the strategy. That\u2019s not why I\u2019ve been engaged. All I\u2019m trying to do is understand the stated intent.<\/p>\n
Secondly, I look at the existing portfolio of work. Not on paper, but with the teams doing the work. I look at the initiatives in flight, the prioritisation and the effort allocated to each. This doesn\u2019t just tell me about the status quo. It tells me about the real strategy. The things the leaders actually care about. The delivery teams are rarely pursuing these initiatives despite the leaders. They\u2019re pursuing them because of the leaders.<\/p>\n
This is \u201ccorporate body language\u201d, and it\u2019s why Peter Drucker famously said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast”.<\/p>\n
The quote is familiar enough to have become a cliche, but I\u2019d suggest it\u2019s slightly misleading. In my opinion, culture doesn\u2019t eat strategy for breakfast. It\u2019s more a case that many leaders are in denial about what their true strategy really is.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the leaders who decide what gets done. It is they who define the priorities. If the teams under them aren\u2019t working on tasks that make the written strategy happen, then that isn\u2019t the strategy at all. The real strategy is defined by the work in progress.<\/p>\n
When this disconnect happens, communicating the future strategy won\u2019t fix the problem. In fact, it can make the problem even worse. The people doing the real work get pulled in two directions. Firstly they\u2019ll desperately try to understand and enact the communicated strategy. Secondly, they\u2019ll be working hard to please the stakeholders and leaders by satisfying the immediate demands.<\/p>\n
If the two don\u2019t align, paralysis sets in and either nothing gets done, or worse still it gets repeatedly done and then undone. Any sense of clear, meaningful purpose is lost and motivation evaporates.<\/p>\n
This is the worst possible outcome. It\u2019s better to have no strategy and simply react to events than to have a paper based strategy that isn\u2019t reflected in the work. If you are going to have a strategy, then the work is a fundamental part of that strategy. Everything you do as a leader should align to that strategy. In other words, you need to make sure your \u201ccorporate body language\u201d matches what you\u2019re saying.<\/p>\n
This shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with true strategy that makes a difference. If that\u2019s you, then you already know that a strategy is much more than just a mission statement and the goals and objectives that go with it. A strategy includes the approach to be taken, and the methods of execution. A strategy isn\u2019t real until it manifests itself in actual changes to the portfolio of work. Conversely, and maybe even more importantly, a strategy isn\u2019t real until it reflects the work.<\/p>\n
So, returning to the original request at the start of this post, how do you make the strategy happen? The answer, contrary to popular belief, isn\u2019t just communication. The answer is collaboration. You need to get together with the people doing the work, and collaborate with them to make the strategy and the work match. To do this, both will have to change.<\/p>\n
This is challenging to do and that\u2019s why people tend to avoid it. On one hand, some of the aspirational elements of the strategy might not survive the process. On the other hand, work that people have invested serious personal time into might have to be abandoned. It\u2019s a potentially painful process, but it\u2019s worth it. If you can work together on this and reach consensus, what you then have is a strategy that\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n
And one final point. This isn\u2019t something you do once, or even infrequently. This is a regular activity. As the work progresses, discoveries will be made, lessons will be learned and the world will change. This process of alignment needs to happen all the time. It needs to become a core part of your ways of working.<\/p>\n
If you can do this then culture won\u2019t eat your strategy for breakfast, because your strategy will be the culture.<\/p>\n
Luckily, I\u2019ve previously written a blog post about an approach that does exactly this. It\u2019s called continuous evolution and you can read more about it here:<\/p>\n