What Could “Being (More) Strategic” Look Like?

Throughout my career, I’ve seen surveys where business leaders bemoan the lack of time available for strategic thinking because they’re always stuck in the day-to-day. Even meetings that are supposedly dedicated to Strategy (capital S) have a tendency to revert to immediate issues and opportunities. I freely acknowledge this “tyranny of the urgent,” but I’ve also observed that many leaders are more comfortable in the realm of the present and they’re not really sure what being more strategic would entail. Leave alone for now the further idea of there being alignment among leaders as to what constitutes “being strategic.”

To resolve this conundrum, I thought it would be helpful to begin with a definition of Strategy in the corporate context. Here’s what I came up with:

Strategy is the intentional deployment of particular assets and capabilities to achieve desired results.

So “being strategic” means ensuring that your company is intentionally deploying particular assets and capabilities to achieve its desired results.

A few words in there require some elaboration, and provide opportunities for specific activities in the realm of Strategy:

• Intentional – Strategy is the output of careful consideration of the opportunity, risks, options, available resources, and outcomes. It doesn’t “just happen.” It takes discipline and time from leadership to formulate, communicate, and drive to execution.
  • “Being Strategic” – How does leadership provide direction to the organization and its various stakeholders? How – and how effectively – does leadership signal and direct change in pursuit of growth? Just as importantly, how does the executive leadership team collaborate to co-create and align on these statements of intention? How does this work fit into the business planning cycle, and cascade into operating plans?
• Deployment – Strategy without a focus on execution is worthless. Deployment is about taking action – putting assets and capabilities into the field of play with a purpose and a plan (and an agile mentality).
  • “Being Strategic” – What specific initiatives are being funded, at what levels and in what proportion to other resources? Are these initiatives understood for their strategic value and staffed with appropriate talent? What progress are they making? Is it adequate? Is any change in course and speed required? Is it time to de-fund any initiatives for lack of material progress or learning?
• Particular – Strategy identifies the critical means of gaining advantage and ensures its availability.
  • “Being Strategic” – Has the company defined its core strategic assets and capabilities (i.e. its “crown jewels”), or its “value center of gravity”? How do these compare to immediate, adjacent, and disruptive competitors? How are these assets and capabilities being preserved, extended, and evolved as the company moves forward? How are these changes being incentivized at the individual contributor and management levels?
• Assets and capabilities – Strategy accounts for the total body of resources needed to advance the organization, and how those will evolve into the future.
  • “Being Strategic” – How is the company investing in its core operations, value chains, partner/supplier relationships? How does it define and support innovation? Where does the company stand in its digital transformation? How has the pandemic changed the company’s approach to doing business?
• Desired Results – Strategy defines destinations and milestones based on the magnitude of the result, the time frame for accomplishment, and the risks associated with the effort. At the macro level, the singular desired result is the fulfillment of the company’s mission; other results are defined across three time horizons (H1-H2-H3).
  • “Being Strategic” – How does the company express its intentions across all three time horizons? How are resources allocated across the three, and how are H2 and H3 initiatives and resources “protected” from H1 urgency?

Answering the “Being Strategic” questions above and pulling all the answers together into a coherent expression of Strategy is the work of a coordinated executive leadership team. A mature team aligns around a set of methods and processes to provide the organization with context, direction, and cultural leadership – enabling business execution and investor confidence.

But even if the leadership team hasn’t yet aligned around this role and adopted team-wide methods, individual leaders can still provide strategic value by diving into the specific areas above, particularly those closely related to their professional expertise. For instance, the management and evolution of strategic capabilities ties directly to the talent development and acquisition teams. On the other hand, Desired Results are largely shaped by market- and customer-facing teams.

I’m not suggesting a divide-and-conquer approach to developing Strategy. Indeed, I believe that team-wide collaboration is essential to establishing a unified “Voice of Leadership” for the organization. Besides, you’ll quickly realize the inter-connectedness of these dimensions of Strategy. It’s hard, for example, to evolve strategic capabilities if you don’t know how the company’s business model and core offerings will be changing in 3-4 years.    

Nevertheless, individual leaders can both gain strategic insight and provoke their colleagues into deeper discussions by starting in one area and building out from there. If there is no mandate from the top on how the executive team will “become more strategic,” then sometimes a grassroots/bottom’s-up approach can get the team started down a path, or at least demonstrate that there’s better way to lead.

So the next time you resolve to spend more time “working on Strategy,” I hope you’ll think about whether and how you (individually and collectively) are intentionally deploying particular assets and capabilities to achieve desired results. If I can be of service, please don’t hesitate to reach out.