How to Make the Most of Your Company’s Strategy

How to Make the Most of Your Company’s Strategy

by Stephen Bungay

In the decades since Peter Drucker first urged executives to manage by objectives, companies have replaced his famous “letter to the boss” with ever more elaborate and time-consuming processes for setting goals. The result is usually a profusion of measures and targets, finally approved six months into the year they are supposed to cover, that only add to the confusion about what really matters to the business. For most managers, the big unanswered question remains: What do you want me to do?

This article is about how to answer that question. In the following pages you will read about a process I call strategy briefing, a technique derived from the military. Through it, managers and their reports can move together from the uncertainty surrounding seemingly complex goals and performance measures to clarity about just which objectives each person needs to focus on, in what order of priority. The briefing also helps managers set parameters for two variables that are the bedrock of high performance: the extent to which people in an organization act in line with its leaders’ intentions, and how much freedom they have to take independent action. In essence, the briefing turns lofty strategic goals into a clear blueprint for execution.

In what follows I’ll walk you through the five-step briefing process, illustrating it with a fictional example stitched together from my own experiences as a consultant and a teacher. To conclude I’ll explain how to roll the process up, down, and across your organization.
The Road to Confusion Is Paved with Good Intentions

Joe was a star. An engineer, he also had an MBA and worked at a large, well-established information services company. A year after moving into product development, he was asked to set up a low-cost R&D center in Asia. By introducing new, less expensive offerings, the company hoped to fend off increasing competition from cheaper rivals.

Six months into the project, Joe convened an off-site. After presenting the company’s goals and challenges, he asked the people attending for thoughts on how they could help meet them. After a few moments’ silence, one of the senior technicians raised his hand. “I don’t want to sound negative,” he said, “but what exactly are we really trying to achieve?”

Joe was taken aback. “It’s perfectly clear, isn’t it? We’re creating a new center to develop low-cost products. We’ve got two years. You know the situation, and you know the company’s strategy. I just went through it.”

“Sure,” came the reply, “but frankly, I’m still confused. There’s lots of stuff in our goals about shareholder value, reinventing ourselves, thinking globally, and embracing change. There’s stuff about being innovative and delivering superior customer satisfaction, and there are targets for increasing revenue, lowering costs, and raising margins. Well, I don’t get it. From where I sit the sky’s falling in. We’re in a deep recession, the competition is eating our lunch, revenues are falling, margins are shot to bits, customers are starting to hate us, and all anyone seems to care about is getting rid of people to save money. Some of us are probably next. Where are we in all this? What are we supposed to do?”

Joe sensed that he needed to take control. “OK,” he said, “I hear you. And you’re right. Let’s sit down and work it out now so we’re all singing from the same sheet. Let’s not just talk; let’s write it down, so we all know exactly what we are about.”

http://hbr.org/2011/01/how-to-make-the-most-of-your-companys-strategy/ar/1