I was recently facilitating a board meeting that ran about as well as a board meeting can. The leadership team came organized and prepared. They stayed focused on the issues that mattered most and engaged thoughtfully with every question and idea raised. I could not have asked for much more.
The One Question I Had
Afterward, I was asked for my observations.
I shared what I had seen. The meeting was healthy, well organized, and conducive to getting business done. I had only one question. The team had walked through several areas of execution, and I wanted to understand how each one connected to the broader strategy.
That is when I learned there was no broader strategy.
After a moment, I said that might be the biggest missing piece. And the fact that I noticed it simply by observing was telling.
A conversation followed. Some people in the conversation saw real value in stepping back to talk about strategy, and to actually formulate one. Others were less sure. One shared the view that strategy is not necessary until a company reaches a certain size, and that until then, leaders should not be pulled out of the work to plan.
I listened. Taking leaders away from execution for a half day or full day is a legitimate concern, particularly when the leadership team is small.
My response was simple. Some of the initiatives on the table would take the company in very different directions. Pursuing all of them would stretch a small leadership team thin. A strategy could help them decide which ones best fit what they hope to achieve.
Then I Heard It Again
Not long after, I was in the audience for a panel discussion with leaders from a successful, closely held company. They talked about the company’s history, the approach that has worked well for them across different markets, and what they hope to achieve for their customers and for the people on their team.
Someone in the audience asked about strategy. How do you arrive at it? What does your process for developing strategy look like?
There were a few chuckles and some shifting in chairs. Then came the admission: there is no overall strategy for the firm.
Two organizations of different sizes, both still growing, and neither working from an overall strategy.
Strategy Is Not About Size
Those two experiences caused me to reflect on our own firm. Accelus Partners is a small professional services firm, yet we have a strategy.
We have one because strategy is not about reaching a particular size. It is about focus. It helps us decide what deserves our attention, what supports the direction we have chosen, and what may be a good opportunity but is not the right opportunity for us.
That need does not belong only to the smallest organizations or the largest. It applies to any organization that wants to focus its people and resources on the work most important to execution.
The Real Question Is Focus
My point is not that strategy guarantees success. It does not. Both of these organizations are doing well.
The question both experiences left me with is this: How do you focus your leadership team, and the other teams across your organization, on what matters most?
Without something that connects the work to a larger direction, every initiative can appear important. People stay busy, but busy is not the same as focused. When there is no shared basis for choosing between competing priorities, decisions either become inconsistent or find their way back to the top.
A strategy should give leaders clear answers to a few basic questions:
- What are our most important priorities right now?
- What are we responsible and accountable for delivering in the year, quarter, month, or week ahead?
- How will we know whether we delivered it, and to whom are we accountable?
If the members of your leadership team would answer those questions differently, that is worth knowing before the next initiative lands on the table.
For more on why narrowing the list can support stronger execution, read our earlier article, Strategic Simplicity: Why Fewer Priorities Create More Progress.
We also explored strategic simplicity with leaders during a recent Conversation Among Leaders. Watch the Conversation Among Leaders recording.
If you asked each member of your leadership team to name your organization’s top three priorities, how many different lists would you get?
