1 April 2008
How communicable is your strategy?
Summarize your strategy in 35 words and watch it spring into action.
This month’s Harvard Business Review discusses the importance of a communicable strategy. “Most executives cannot articulate the objective, scope, and advantage of their business in a simple statement. If they can’t, neither can anyone else,” say David J. Collis and Michael G. Rukstad.
Strategy in less than 35 words
The authors begin by asking, “Can you summarize your company’s strategy in 35 words or less?” Even if you can, because you're close to it, can all leaders? How about all employees?
Organizations with a clear – and understood – strategy 'are often the most successful in their industry'.
Collis and Rukstad say that organizations with a clear – and understood – strategy “are often the most successful in their industry.”
Where strategy is unclear, or even unknown outside the C-suite, staff can become confused about the organization’s priorities. They may let opportunities pass by, or waste time chasing the wrong objectives.
At the same time, senior leaders wonder why their great strategy is never fully implemented. The reason? “They fail to appreciate the necessity of having a simple, clear, succinct strategy statement that everyone can internalize and use as a guiding light for making difficult choices,” Collis and Rukstad say.
Three key components
Ruckstad has previously identified 3 components of a good strategy statement – “objective, scope, and advantage” – saying that “executives should be forced to be crystal clear about them.”
He said, “Any strategy statement must begin with a definition of the ends that the strategy is designed to achieve.” He points out that an organization must define the boundaries of its operation, which may include products and services, or its geographical area(s).
But these elements alone aren't enough. The organization must also be clear about how it plans to reach its objective. What Ruckstad calls its “competitive advantage” – in other words, what the organization will do better than competitors.
Any strategy statement must begin with a definition of the ends that the strategy is designed to achieve.
The article summarizes the “objective” component as the “ends” and the “advantage” component as the “means”.
Don’t confuse strategy with mission, vision, values
Collis and Rukstad warn organizations not to confuse strategy with mission, vision or values. Instead, strategy is “the single precise objective that will drive the business over the next 5 years or so.”
They advise organizations to involve employees in crafting the strategy statement – and say the wording “should be worked through in painstaking detail.” They explain that the discussions executives have over wording are often the very ones in which the strategy “is crystallized and executives truly understand what it will involve.”
The resulting brief statement should be accompanied by further detail to clarify any “nuances”. Collis and Rukstad support a process that cascades the strategy through the organization, with each level teaching the next. Critically, this activity “becomes the starting point for incorporating strategy into everyone’s behavior.”
The discussions executives have over wording are often the very ones in which the strategy 'is crystallized'.
Have your say
What happens in your organization – is strategy a mystery to all but the CEO? How well do your leaders understand the need to make strategy crystal clear if everyone is to play their part? Leaders often think they’ve done the hard work by defining the strategy in the first place – surely no need to do more.
How do you convince leaders of the need to firstly, make the strategy communicable – and secondly, actually spend time ensuring that everyone understands?
Incredible, but true – the strategy manual rarely comes out of its internal mail envelope in many organizations. No wonder it’s never implemented.
Discuss these issues with other comms practitioners by joining the Internal Comms Hub members' group on the Communicators' Network.
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TOP TIPS: Preparing to communicate strategy
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