Ask Christa! Strategy Series (2/3): HELP!! I Don't Know My Company's Strategy!!! (S1E9)

Hi everyone and welcome to Ask Christa! the place where you can ask questions about how to work through business challenges and workplace issues. I'm Christa Dhimo and this is part two of my three-part Strategy Series. 

The first part, Episode 8, answered the question, , “What is Strategy?”

This segment addresses the question, “What do I do if there doesn’t seem to be a strategy?” 

In every organization I ever helped to turn around, especially those that have stalled on innovation and revenue, or are bleeding out money, or BOTH, I’ve seen two very obvious, plain-in-sight factors: 

First, leadership believed they were strategic and they had a solid strategy—and the board believed that also—and that any downturn was because of market changes and/or employees, and Second, 

there wasn’t a complete strategy. There was a solid sales plan to generate revenues, and there were some great partnership strategies they implemented, but anything related to general and administration or plans related to the direct costs of manufacturing weren’t nearly as complete or understood as the plans related to sales, and… that’s a problem when it comes to strategy, because “strategy” is about how a company pulls the ENTIRE organization together to meet or exceed their corporate goals. 

In fact, in many instances of company recoveries, I have seen that the most visible goals are related to increasing revenues—which is important-- but not much else, and this is when it probably feels like there is no strategy, just as the question for this segment indicates.

But remember: to sell something, you need products to sell, you need people to cultivate customer relationships, and you need a variety of fallback plans for when something unexpected happens that puts your goals at risk.

And if you’re a service organization and you do not sell products per se, you still need intellectual capital codified and packaged to sell, people to cultivate the relationships, and a variety of fallback plans for when something unexpected happens that puts your goals at risk.

Now, most times these issues with employees feeling there is no strategy occurs within smaller businesses emerging out of a startup mode, or mid-sized companies that have been hyper focused on generating revenues in order to move into a bigger company size and gain momentum. As stated in the What is Strategy segment, small and mid-sized companies are not typically held to the same standards as large and enterprise-level companies, especially if you are privately held. 

But a strategy enables you to consider what you have today—the context of your current state—and what needs to be done in order to achieve your desired future state. The “what” should include the who and the how also. 

We can see the need of strategy even in our every day lives. In the case of a surprise party, you’ll probably delegate some of the tasks or have a core group of people who are helping—or at least, you should—this is a big party with a lot of moving parts AND you have to keep it a surprise!!! You’re not going to focus just on the food, right? Or just on how you’ll get the guest there and surprised—you need to be thinking about ALL of it, get everyone on the same page about it, and execute as flawlessly as possible. 

That’s… strategy!

So what do you do if you feel like there is no strategy? 

For starters, learn a bit about strategy. Most people don’t learn about strategy, either because they think you need to be a business person or an MBA to understand it, or simply because they’ve never had a chance to learn. I’ll put Season 1, Episode 8 of Aks Christa! into the show notes as a resource; that episode has three additional resources that help to demystify what STRATEGY is. 

After that, seek clarity through work tools that may already exist. Sometimes there is a strategy and it’s communicated, but it’s not getting to the employees because of a manager who isn’t a good communicator or a department head who doesn’t cascade information appropriately. 

·       Do you have town halls where leadership revisits and communicates status of the big company goals? Well—the plan for achieving those goals is your strategy.

·       Do you have investor calls?

·       What does your website say?

Some may advise that you immediately go to your manager and ask about strategy, but I’m advising that you instead take the initiative to firstly do some exploring on your own. 

By acquiring foundational knowledge, you gain perspective AND put yourself in position to ask very specific questions about what YOU believe to be the strategy and WHY you might feel that there isn’t a strategy. 

By seeking out foundational answers, you will have a discussion instead of a question and answer meeting. If you’re not sure how to go about it, something like this might work, “hey, we talk a lot about revenue generating activities and goals, but I’m not clear on the other goals or how we’ll achieve them. I see them on our website, but we don’t talk about them a lot. How does it all fit together?” (because that “how does it all fit together” is the strategy)

Or you can ask something directly about your job with a healthy dose of your own critical thinking as you consider how you fit with what might be the bigger strategy, such as, “I’d like to talk about how my role supports our strategy. Our website says part of our plan in the next two years is to increase production through expansion of plants and use of automation. Since we’re in supply chain, can I contribute to some of the capital equipment deals to learn more about how supply-chain is involved in the strategic goals of our organization?”

Exploring and learning about your company’s strategy as a first step will offer opportunities for a far more enriching discussion-- one that should lead to some depth in the answer, certainly more than just asking about what the strategy is. 

And one of the greatest ways you can learn about strategy and also test how good the strategy is, is to discuss how your role will enable the execution of strategy.

If, in contrast, there is nothing you can find on your website that bridges the gap between your current state, your desired future state, and how you might get there—and if your organization doesn’t communicate well, say with Town Halls or All Hands meetings where the organization gathers to learn about status and future state, the discussion with your manager will obviously be different. 

It might sound more like this, “I’ve been learning a bit more about strategy—it’s purpose, how strategic planning works, and how a solid strategy provides the roadmap for meeting the goals of a business. Where can I learn more about our strategy or strategic plan? I’ve looked on the website, but maybe I’m looking in the wrong place. I’m curious about how I can get more involved in the bigger picture while I remain focused on my role.”

Now obviously this might be a weird discussion, because if your manager isn’t talking about the strategic plan, and if your CEO isn’t talking about the strategic plan (or talking… ever!), chances are you’re in one of those smaller businesses that may not… have a strategy. They may think they do because it’s all about revenue generation and raising capital, but that’s not a strategy—those are goals to advance something, and the something is the strategy.

In truth, I’ve seen managers become defensive when their employees ask about this—as if the employee is challenging the manager.  

I’ve also seen managers insisting that there is a strategy, yet they aren’t able to articulate it

So… do what feels right for you based on where you work. You will know best. 

But if you DO have the discussion and you do not understand or hear about the strategy by the time the discussion is done, then… you might be in an organization that does not have a clear strategy. And that,,,, does… happen!

Companies CAN survive on the momentum of an idea or one goal and without a strategy, for a little while, but soon they will run out of runway. They simply don’t have a roadmap that provides the path forward, including what remains tight for structure or loose for flexibility, and how the whole organization made up of several different employees and functions will work together to meet or exceed organizational goals. 

That’s not a sustainable model, so don’t be alarmed, but also know that the feeling you have—that there is no strategy—is right… and soon it will probably feel as though you have no real direction, or that teams work in a disjointed way, all focused on what they think needs to be done versus focused on a unifying approach that focuses on specific goals. But that’s not you. It’s the reality when there is no… strategy.

For this segment’s resources, I included an article from Sloan Management Review from Sull, Sull, and Yoder. The article is called “No one knows your strategy—not even your top leaders.” It’s from the Strategic Agility Project, which I just learned about as I sought out additional resources for you, and I’ve included that in the resources also.

The article touches on elements that we strategy professionals review a lot with senior leaders: that their strategy and how many people know the strategy (and priorities and goals) is probably not as strong or solid or as well-known as senior leaders think. What I love about the article, aside from how practical and directive it is, is that it is based on research. 

Remember, business as a social science has a lot of valuable research associated with it—and a lot of the research is published in Sloan Management Review, Harvard Businses Review, and various other journals that are written specifically for anyone working in a business. Anyone can learn about the best way to build a business, manage a business, grow a business, recover a business… 

For shame, so many people do not seek the guidance from evidence-based research, and I get it. There are times when it’s dense, a difficult read, and feels somewhat detached, but in the last 25 years, more and more business research is applied research from academics who are also deeply involved in real-world work, so—give it a shot. See what you think.

And check out the other articles in The Strategic Agility Project.

Alright, there it is—another segment. In the next episode, which is the last and final installment of this series, I’ll answer the question, “how do I draft any goals when the strategy isn’t clearly communicated?” 

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