The Four Audiences for Strategy (or Why Am I Creating a Strategy Again?)

I regularly see that developing strategy is viewed as an inconvenience that takes people away from doing their real jobs. Sometimes strategic planning becomes a rote process that organizations do at a particular time of year. Or maybe you're developing a strategy because your boss asked for your team's strategy and you didn't have a good answer.

But if time is money, why do organizations invest precious resources in developing strategy?

What's the point of developing strategy?

To answer this question, look at the four audiences for your strategy:

1. EMPLOYEES - People who are engaged in their work perform better. One of the keys to being fully engaged is to have a meaningful vision of the future and way to get there that's believable. Get your team involved in the process of developing strategy and then communicate, communicate, communicate the results with them. On top of engagement, the strategy will guide your employees in the hundreds of decisions they make (some big, most small) on a weekly basis.
2. BOSS/BOARD OF DIRECTORS - It's important that your boss (or BoD) believes in you. This is part of "managing up". You need the support of your superiors to be successful. Develop a strategy that aligns with the bigger goals of the organization. Make your boss/board/superiors look good and help them to achieve their goals.
3. INVESTORS - I use this term loosely. In the case of a business, you may have outside investors. For a team within a larger organization, think of your investors as those who control resources. You have to show them that you have a compelling strategy for achieving success in order to get access to the resources (money, people, tools, mind share) you need. 
4. YOURSELF AND YOUR TEAM - This is the CORE of why you develop strategy! The strategy creates the foundation for how your team will operate. What things will people work on (and, just as importantly, NOT work on)? How will individuals and the team focus time, money and other resources? (A good reference is Principle 1 in the Bain article Strategic Planning That Produces Real Strategy.) What metrics will you track to measure progress and, ultimately, success or failure? 

Two final notes to leave you with. First, be explicit with the four audiences about why you are investing the organization's time and resources in strategic planning. Address head on the toxic mindset that it's a waste of time. You need the smartest minds as engaged in the process as possible!

Second, be sure to think through your audiences at the beginning of your strategic planning process so that the resulting strategy will be viewed as positively as possible by all stakeholders. No one wants a "meh" strategy or one that gets put on the shelf without impacting the organization. Go build a great strategy that produces great results for your organization!

Leaders Must Be Explicit About Change

In my last post, The Top Ten Keys to Successful Change, I talked about how to make changes successful.  An interesting blog post by Margaret Heffernan in BNET raises an interesting question:  Do people even notice when change is happening?


While the video on change blindness (see below) may not appear to directly correlate to changes within an organization, my observation is that people do not necessarily realize that change is happening--even if they do recognize the personal impact.


As leaders, our job is to make sure that people don't just feel the effects of change.  It's critical to be explicit about change.  Be sure to communicate that change is happening--no matter how obvious that might seem (again, check out the video below).  That will enable people to prepare themselves mentally and emotionally.  Remember:  even change for the better can be difficult for people.

The Top 10 Keys to Successful Change

Change is difficult for people (both individually and as organizations)--even when it's change for the better.  In order to succeed and have longevity, a business must evolve.  That means that a company's employees must change.  After all, you don't want to work for the world's greatest typewriter company.

Here are the top keys to successful change management:

1. Engagement, engagement, engagement.  Identify your stakeholders (there are almost certainly more than you think) and get them involved in the process.  Get input.  Listen.  Surveys are a great mechanism but make sure that you use more personal techniques as well (such as individual and small group meetings).
2. Communicate, communicate, communicate.  Make sure that people understand what's happening, why it's happening, the end state, the goals, and the benefits.  Even if people don't absorb all of the information, make sure that it's available.
3. Have a vision for where you're going and how things will be better when you will arrive.  Think in terms of benefits for the stakeholders.  If people perceive that things will be harder for them, they may not care that the business will improve and they certainly won't care that you'll get a promotion.
4. Have a plan.  Or the skeptics (and there always are some) will skewer you.  How will this change come about?  Provide the tools (processes, tools/systems, etc.) that people will need to be successful after the change.
5. Achieve small wins.  Show progress or people will lose faith.
6. Find and develop advocates.  You can't do it alone.  Find people--especially those who are influential--to be on your side.  (Remember that an organization's leaders are not necessarily those who are in management).
7. Address concerns and resistance directly.  Again, change is difficult for many.  Don't pretend that resistance doesn't exist (it may not be expressed--which is even worse).
8. Have "thick skin".  No matter how hard you work at all of the above, some people will complain and then complain some more.  Listen openly; consider input thoughtfully; but don't give in unless it's the right thing to do.
9. Choose your battles.  Following #8, be prepared to give in on some things that are not that important.  That will give you the ability to win the battles that are essential.
10. Be ridiculously persistent.  It will seem illogical that it's so hard to get things changed.  But that's reality.  You'll encounter obstacles that you didn't consider.  Keep pushing and find a way around them.

Remember that change is a process (not an event), so revisit all of these throughout.

What do you think?  Did I miss any?  What's your #11?

Finally, for inspiration:  "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."  (George Bernard Shaw)  Change is hard--go persist in making the unreasonable the new reality!