The Three Cs of Implementing Strategy (Scott Edinger)

Now, if he'd done this as an infographic, everyone would be on board!

Three Cs of Implementing Strategy

Ask most organizational leaders about their areas of focus and you will hear that strategy is among their highest priorities. Unfortunately, too often leaders pour their energy and resources into formulating strategy and spend too little time figuring out how to implement that strategy throughout the organization.Strategies are frequently created, perhaps not in an ivory tower, but often at a nice resort or conference center, by a small group of people who have been well fed and cared for in the process. Those strategies are typically beautiful, and display particularly well in PowerPoint. (I’ve never seen a strategy fail in the boardroom.) Unfortunately, most leaders fail—not in the formulation of strategy, but in its implementation.

To successfully execute an organization’s strategy, it must be the focus of every person in that organization. It is up to the leaders to create, monitor, and reward that focus as it is expressed. So how then do you provide the leadership required to implement strategies in a way that allows them to come to life in each corner of an organization? I offer that if you pay attention to the Three Cs of strategy, you will be well on your way to success in this endeavor.

Clarify your strategy: All too often, strategies are expressed as high-level statements that resonate with board and executive levels but fall flat with mid-level and frontline personnel. Unfortunately, if people don’t understand the strategy, they are unable to connect with it. So the first step is to clarify your strategy in a way that people in your organization can rally to support its implementation. Done well, this strategy will tie together your goals and objectives and clearly explain what you intend to do. In their book “Top Management Strategy”, Ben Tregoe and John Zimmerman offer a very useful definition of strategy, calling it, “the framework which guides those choices that determine the nature and direction of an organization.” Most importantly, try to stay away from “corporate speak,” or “bureaucratize,” which Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines calls “difficult to understand and boring.”

Communicate your strategy: I’ve never encountered an organization where I heard from people that we communicate too often or with plenty of clarity. So then, communication is the second C. Powerfully communicating the essence of your strategy at every level of the organization using multiple mediums is the key here. (Don’t expect the posters you had made up to do the job.) Use internal blogs and message boards, brown bag luncheons, podcasts, and department meetings to communicate what the strategy is and how everybody’s work is informed by that strategy. Discussions need to occur at each level, translating the organization’s strategy to understandable and contextualized sound bites, which connect to the work of individuals. In short, communicating the strategy provides the “connective tissue” throughout the organization that helps people understand the big picture.

Cascade your strategy: If strategy is “what” you do then tactics are “how” you do it. And if you want your strategy implemented well, you need to cascade it throughout the organization and get to the practical and tactical components of people’s jobs every day. Ideally, you will involve your managers in this process, and they will help to translate the elements of the strategy for your organization to their own functional areas. Doing this allows them to develop and own the process of cascading the strategy and designing implementation plans with high likelihood of execution. Cascading strategy is the proverbial rubber hitting the road. The bulk of the work in implementing strategy is done at this stage. It is the team meetings, the one-on-one coaching, the process improvements, the customer meetings, and the responses to the market that, in alignment with an organization’s strategy, can make a tremendous difference for an organization.

The pace of business shows no signs of slowing down and the competition in any sector isn’t getting easier. But effectively implementing strategy can be a source of competitive advantage. Try these Three Cs and see if they help.Leaders from Fortune 500 companies to small not-for-profits must be armed with the ability to effectively implement the strategies of their organization, all while juggling 100s of emails and voice mails, and addressing the exigencies of the day.  Because implementing strategy is not additive work for the leader. It is, in fact, their pivotal job.