Visionary leaders are often good at communicating their vision but fail to provide enough details for leaders to move the organization towards the goal.
Why do strategies fail?
There are many reasons why strategies fail, including some that are not actual strategies. Strategy is more than a vision and mission statement wrapped up in company values. Effective strategies provide leaders in your organization with enough information to make strategic and tactical decisions in their day-to-day job.
Other Reasons Strategies fail
- Overwhelming Strategic Plan that is too complicated and eventually ignored.
- Lack of communication with the people responsible for executing the strategy.
- Unforeseen external circumstances and lack of agility to respond to changes.
- Lack of resources and confusion resulting in status quo.
- Lace of empower and accountability to lead change.
- Disconnect between the people that develop the strategy and people that execute it.
- No ownership or buy in to support the strategy.
Purpose of Your Strategy
The primary purpose of your strategy is to inform and motivate your people to take action as they move towards your vision. Good strategies are like a map that guide your people and provides them information about:
- Where they are starting and where they are going.
- What obstacles and mountains they will need to climb or avoid.
- What paths or options are available to take.
- Where to find resources to support them on their journey.
- What objectives must be met on the journey.
Power of Keep IT Simple Strategies
The KISS Principle has been around several decades. In 1938, the phrase “Keep It Short and Simple” appeared in a printed newspaper. The acronym KISS for “Keep it Simple Stupid” is attributed to Kelly Johnson as a design principle used by the U.S. Navy in 1960. The U.S. Navy’s aircraft needed to be simple enough that an average mechanic could repair it with the limited tools on an aircraft carrier in combat situations. Kelly Johnson recognized that the tools and supplies available at the plane factory were not going to be readily available on a boat that had been traveling for weeks and months in a combat zone.
It's easy for intelligent engineers to design a complex aircraft. Or for intelligent executives and consultants to design complex strategies. But sesquipedalian terminology in a strategy document often confuses average people with long fancy words they don’t understand. The people responsible for executing your strategy need to clearly understand what you want them to do. When things start falling apart in the business world, you need your team to quickly understand how to fix it.
Start with Simple and Clear Language
When a large consulting firm is hired to develop a strategy, they often produce a large document written to impress the executive team or board of directors. I’ve read 100+ pages of a strategy document that eloquently talked about the vision, mission, and values of the organization. It was full of phrases used by executives. Unfortunately, it offered no tangible information to guide middle management or the employees responsible for executing the strategy. Who is the audience for your strategy?
The audiences for strategy documents are the people responsible for executing the day-to-day tasks that will move your organization towards your vision. The terminology and language must be written for everyone in your organization to understand. Keeping it short and simple will empower more people to execute your strategy.
If your executive team is the only people that understand your strategy, then your executive team is the only one that can execute it. However, if all your employees understand and know your strategy, then all your employees can help you execute it. Powerful business strategies have an army of employees that understand and know what to do.
Plan for Limited Resources
Kelly Johnson knew the mechanics on an aircraft carrier had limited resources. Likewise, the average employees in most organizations have limited resources. Executives and upper management often have access to more resources or the authority to acquire resources when needed. However, as you move lower in the organization that authority and immediate access decreases substantially.
Military strategies often succeed or fail based on getting resources to the front lines. Soldiers that run out of ammunition, fuel, or food don’t last long. High employee turnover in organizations can be a sign that your people are not getting the resources they need to survive. The success of your strategy depends on your ability to understand the resource needs of your business and how to keep your workers on the front line properly equipped to do their job.
A winning strategy requires that you keep resources moving to the right people at the right time. Plans that require expensive resources or an abundance of resources become increasing difficult to execute as your organization moves towards your vision.
- What happens to your strategy if the economy goes the wrong direction?
- What happens to your strategy if your supply chain gets interrupted?
- What are the minimum resources your team needs to execute your strategy?
- Where do your employees go to get the resources they need?
Keep it Real
Keeping it simple does not mean ignoring reality. Your strategy will face opposition and obstacles that require your team to change direction. A research study by Forbes Insights found the most common reason cited for strategy failure was unforeseeable external circumstances. The study went on to identify that one of the key factors for success was “anticipating the potential obstacles and preparing accordingly.”
No one can see the future. Therefore, all strategies will encounter unforeseeable challenges. That is why you need an agile business strategy. Successful strategies recognize that obstacles are going to block the path forward.
Trying to identify every possible challenge and obstacle will be an exercise in futility. Furthermore, trying to document every contingency will be exhausting for the reader trying to find a quick answer. Instead of focusing on every problem, try focusing on what types of problems your people should expect to encounter. Focus more attention on the tools and process to navigate around a variety of problems. Develop an agile strategy that gives your teams the tools and ability to climb over or go around the obstacles they encounter.
Here are some basic questions that need a simple and concise answer.
- What types of problems do you expect your people to encounter?
- When your leaders and employees encounter a problem, what do you want them to do?
- When do they report back to you?
- What are they empowered to do on their own?
- What resources have you made available to help them navigate around obstacles?
Stay Connected with Feedback and Accountability
Effective communication requires information to flow both directions and for both sides to understand the content and intent of the message. Keeping the message simple and using terminology that both sides understand will help improve communication. But some problems are complex and require more than a simple answer. Keeping your strategies simple does not eliminate the complex world around us.
Agile methodologies in software development emphasize feedback loops and holding people accountable. Implementing agile business strategies also requires feedback loops, where people can quickly communicate and provide feedback to each other. Ideally, you want to open the lines of communication between the people executing your strategy and the people responsible for developing and maintaining it.
When things change on the front lines, that information needs to flow back to headquarters so they can quickly adjust the strategy with new intelligence. Military, political, and corporate strategies all rely on effective communication with information moving reliably between two or more people.
One way to keep your strategy simple is to build an effective communication channel that encourages feedback and sharing timely information. When complex problems arise this communication tool helps provide the additional resources to solve the problem.
Power of KISS Strategies
Simple may not be elegant, but it works. Simple strategies are easier for people to understand. Furthermore, simple solutions are often faster and easier to maintain. Complex business strategies slow you down and increase your expenses. Developing an agile business strategy based on KISS empowers your employees to move towards your vision with clarity and open lines of communication.
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