Anyone that has worked on strategy issues for any length of time has faced criticisms. Sometimes these criticisms are meaningful disagreements about the conclusions of the strategy processes. At other times, there are expressed and unexpressed criticisms of the strategists and the kind of work that they do.
One criticism is that strategists (especially those with a long term perspective) are not sufficiently coupled to the near term requirements to produce measurable business results. Often this criticism comes from those that are charged with and measured by those results. They can perceive that the strategist is unconcerned with what is most important to their livelihood.
The strategist’s counter argument is that they are greatly concerned about the company’s results and that concern is what drives their efforts to discover, define and communicate the “next big thing”. Interestingly, the near term focus of others can be viewed as shortsighted and petty.
Of course, both views have some merit and are played out every day in organizations. The competition for resources and the right to make decisions for the business encourage the clash in perspectives. In my experience, there is no way to avoid such competition. It has become more apparent to me that rather than having the elimination of the conflict as a goal, the more useful approach is to harness the energies of both groups to produce a superior solution.
My specific interest is from the strategist’s viewpoint. It seems to me that there are several imperatives for a successful strategist to thrive in the inevitable tussles within the organization.
Here are my 7 rules.
1. The strategy effort must have the support of decision making managers of the business. Strategy cannot long prosper if it is treated or executed like a minor function.
2. The strategy must accurately reflect the thinking of the leaders of the organization. After all, it is their ultimate responsibility to deliver results.
3. The strategy process must be transparent so as to encourage meaningful debate. All stakeholders must understand how and when they can contribute to the strategy.
4. The strategist must be skilled at communicating the strategy to all levels of the organization and to the external audiences that are affected. The best strategy that is poorly communicated will be crippled from its beginning.
5. The strategist must effectively and appropriately involve those with near term focuses so that their concerns are integrated in the resultant strategies. A lack of contributory ownership has doomed many a strategy when it came time to execute the strategy.
6. There must be an on-going effort to measure the value of the strategy. Eventually this is profit, revenue, market share and the like. However, there are other measures such as organizational alignment, rapid competitive responses, well developed marketing communications, etc., that can be driven from effective strategies in advance of quantitative results.
7. The strategy effort must have a defined budget much as many firms allocate a percentage of revenue to R&D efforts. The budget and reporting structure must be separate from that of the near term focused activities. Without the separation, it is often tempting to minimize the strategy efforts to maximize near term results (which may sacrifice long term competitiveness).
