Does our staff know why we need a strategy?
A friend wrote this to me yesterday, hinting at the fact that some people in his organization question the need for strategy. More accurately, these people probably question the usefulness of a strategy process. And they are right to question its usefulness. They have 12 hours of work to squeeze into 8. Previous strategy processes probably consisted of weeks or months of meetings that resulted in a rambling pdf which is now archived in the bottom of every inbox, and a 40-page binder that is gathering dust in people’s cubicles. If this is the type of strategy process these people are thinking of, then they are right to feel that a strategy process is not useful. But processes like that are not good strategy processes. So what is a good strategy process?
A strategy process is nothing more than..
a way to choose between actions to take when trying to reach a goal.
Strategies can take many forms, including..
a to-do list, a one-page strategy map, a verbal plan of action, a 40-page binder, etc.
Good strategy processes..
- Have the right level of detail for the group and for the situation. Some groups of people in some situations need a highly-detailed, granular strategy with a formal process for weekly or monthly review. Some will even need sophisticated ways of measuring strategic progress by pulling and displaying data from business systems. Others work best with a very general, simple set of five or six overall goals that are talked about for 5 minutes at weekly meetings. Either way, a good strategy process, for a particular group, will..
- Include a vivid strategy that is easy to remember for the people who are choosing what to do in a situation.
- Include a relevant strategy that is easy to apply to each person’s current situation
- Include a shared strategy. Every member of the group (team, department, organization) should have a similar idea of the overall strategy.
- Encourage people to talk about the strategy. The best way to ensure that a group has a shared strategy is to ensure that it is talked about as part of daily conversations. The more vivid and relevant it is, the easier this will be.
What good strategy processes do..
If a strategy process gets these 5 characteristics right (there are more, but these are the fundamentals), it will help a group or organization to
- make better decisions to support the good of the group or the organization
- feel less anxiety about the future
- decrease the number of irrelevant pet projects
- increase the number of relevant pet projects
- focus less on corporate structure and technology and more on why these exist
- increase trust between people
- increase the ability to measure progress
- increase efficiency
With this in-mind, the question at the beginning of the post should probably be changed to
Does our staff know which kind of strategy process we need?