5 Strategic moments that matter

While we believe that a good manager is always “switched on” to the daily drumbeat of strategic alignment and execution, we also believe that there are at least four other moments that matter.

The first moment that matters is Day Zero: the day you develop the strategy. Good managers pay attention to who is in the room, to an inclusive strategy process, to the data that informed the strategy and to stakeholder communication.

Then there is the daily drumbeat: the way the manager lives and breathes the strategy. Before the strategy is resourced, before doing the first strategic review, the manager’s conduct matters much more than the words on the strategy document. What the manager acknowledges, what gets recognised, and what gets resourced is the most powerful signal of the strategy. These moments of leadership are contingent on what is happening at that moment on that day with a particular person or situation. They often don’t have their own formal meeting time, although some managers implement a morning meeting or daily huddle. Strategy is most alive (and most useful) when it guides routine, ad-hoc, daily decision making.

I am a fan of the weekly huddle – the third moment that matters: huddling with operating teams to resource the strategy and do minor course correction. Slightly more drawn out than the daily moments, the weekly huddle has its own ingredients. They can be more structured and more predictable than the daily touchpoints. In the weekly huddle, the strategic direction should take centre stage, along with any objectives or key indicators. A slightly bigger dataset than the daily issues should come into focus and the data should drive the discussion. The manager’s work of mobilising money (budget) and machines and people toward the strategy, and working with operations to resolve any strategic hurdles, really matters. Resource allocation decisions in the cut and thrust of the operating week makes a significant difference to strategic outcomes. Done well, this involves managers saying “no” to work that is off strategy and amplifying work that is on strategy.

The most neglected moment is the quarterly pause: gathering with management teams to review progress, assess hurdles and align operating units. Once a quarter, good managers carefully review the data and stories coming from the ongoing weekly operating sessions. This quarterly pause gets smashed out of the operating cycle by the urgency and noise of the operation when nobody has time to plan and prepare for a pause. The loss of this quarterly pause is one that managers feel most deeply as the strategy drifts away from its original objectives and becomes lost in the bustle of ancillary goals. On the other hand, a badly designed quarterly pause can feel like a waste of everyone’s time, which can be even more harmful than forgetting to do it at all.

The fifth moment that matters is some form of annual retreat – again, with different ingredients to the quarterly pause. The Annual retreat should step back from the operation and re-examine the strategic assumptions made on day zero. A year goes by so quickly, and yet in that time the world can change around the organisation. The daily, weekly, and quarterly nudges and bludgeons that kept the strategy moving forward might be moving everything in the wrong direction.

These are five moments that matter, each with a different set of ingredients and a different flavour. At WorldsView Academy we facilitate each of those moments such that you have the best chance to create the organisation that your strategy called for. We also integrate our strategy, leadership, and team development programs so that the people in your organisation have the best possible chance of being effective in the healthiest way possible. Talk to us about designing and facilitating your next strategic moment – we would love to help you.

Written by: Craig Yeatman