In my experience, strategy is not done well. The word itself means different things to different people, from "away sessions", to various reflective conversations about what business direction to take going forward, to simply a list of things to get done over the course of a year. There's plenty of room for confusion around what your company's strategy is.
That said, when a strategy is done well, it stands out. And great strategies have hugely underestimated impacts on employees - the fundamental impact being the alignment of collective staff effort over the course of a year.
Think about what that means in reality. Having a well-articulated strategy means that every minute of every day of the year, your employees are clear on why they are doing the work they are doing. When they know this, they can figure out if they are doing the right work for the right reasons and they're more likely to undertake their jobs with a higher level of energy.
Looking at the converse might drive the point home more clearly. Imagine the collective impact of thousands of people working in a different direction to where you're trying to head as a business, or not working at all, or working in a low-energy, un-creative way?
It's important then to reflect on how well crafted and communicated your strategy is for people outside of your senior leadership team.
If you're not happy with the strategic work you've done, you've probably made one of the following mistakes:
If one or more of these resonate, then you may want to consider what view you've constructed around strategy and how that view is shaping your actions. If you unpack that to the level of fundamental belief, you might realise that your view is, "strategy is only for my senior management to contribute to or understand", or "just do what your managers tell you to do - it's their responsibility to deliver the message", or "these guys can't understand it, so I'm not going to bother telling them about it", or "I'm not cut out for public speaking - I'd rather send an email".
Great leaders are great communicators. I can't think of one example of this not being true. Bear in mind that not all great decision makers are great orators (I worked under Jack Welch at GE and he was fantastic to talk to, but not a gifted public speaker by any means). But they all figure out a way to communicate with their staff in a way that is effective for themselves.
Consider the psychological and behavioural impact that this sort of communication has on your people: they want to hear that there is a plan, what that plan is and why it is important, that that you are leading it, and that they are in safe hands.
Their internal response (conscious or unconscious) will be: "Ah, I see where we're headed and what that means to me and my division. I'm happy to be here and I feel important that I've had this shared with me."
Imagine the benefits of investing a small amount of time to deliver this message. Or - to my earlier point - imagine the dangers of not investing that time.
