If you’ve ever been in a business meeting where the conversation turned to strategy, you know how quickly things can get confusing. Everyone has their own ideas and opinions, and it can be difficult to have an honest, productive discussion about what your company should be doing.
But fear not, there are ways to have a productive conversation about strategy without getting bogged down in semantics and conflicting viewpoints. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, “How to Have an Honest Conversation About Your Business Strategy,” authors Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi provide some helpful tips for approaching this topic.
First and foremost, Leinwand and Mainardi stress the importance of honesty. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of telling people what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. By being upfront about your company’s strengths and weaknesses, you can create a more realistic and effective strategy.
They also emphasize the importance of simplicity. Your strategy should be easy to understand and communicate to others. Avoid complex jargon and convoluted plans that no one can follow. To do this, please refer back to the extensive posts i’ve made about Psychological safety and how to create this (see here and here ). Typically this lack of honest dialogues comes from an absence of safety
But perhaps the most interesting part of the article is the authors’ use of a metaphor: the “strategy waterfall.” This refers to the idea that your company’s strategy should be like a waterfall, cascading down through all levels of the organization. Everyone should be able to understand and contribute to the strategy, from the CEO to the front-line employees.
This is where honesty and simplicity come into play. If your strategy is honest and easy to understand, everyone in the organization can contribute to it in a meaningful way. This creates a sense of ownership and buy-in from all employees, leading to greater engagement and better results. Additionally an extended emphasis on consensus-building overlooks the potential value of healthy conflict and debate in strategy development. Consensus is hugely over blown in business. I prefer to seek consent (which prioritizes progress over perfection) and encourage your people to agree that the strategy is safe to implement in their minds and to highlight if they feel it is truly unsafe to them, and then have an extended discussion about this threat if you’re about to bet the firm.
What else works for me? The emphasis on creating a safe space for open and honest dialogue is a critical component of effective strategy development. Also a focus on engaging all stakeholders in the strategy conversation highlights the importance of considering a diverse range of perspectives.
What doesn’t work? Well, the pure focus on large, established companies may not be as relevant for smaller businesses or startups and there is an assumption of a certain level of organizational maturity again linked to established companies that may not be as useful for those still developing their strategy process capabilities.
Having an honest conversation about your business strategy doesn’t have to be a nightmare. By being truthful, keeping things simple, and creating a strategy waterfall, you can create a strategy that is effective, engaging, and easy to communicate. So go and conquer your strategy meetings with confidence!