Resetting the Management Conversation From What We Think to What We Know

One of my least favorite sayings is “culture eats strategy for lunch.” It’s not that I don’t believe in the power of culture to enable an organization. In my own company, our values and purpose of giving people the security they deserve guides everything we do, but equally important, is a strategic plan to build a successful business.

Last night I was invited to join a discussion about Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick -- a new McKinsey book based on research that uses big data to classify the strongest levers for driving company growth. The research is applied to create a framework of the 10 most impactful moves companies can make to outperform. How exciting to reset the conversation at management tables from “we think” to “we know” what will drive growth based on the experience of many companies and industries before us. 

Some of the levers for growth in the model have paid off for my company. Programmatic M&A and divestitures have served us well as we exited businesses where we didn’t have the scale to win or where we acquired businesses to deepen our portfolio of worksite benefits. Similarly, strong capital programs have served us well, investing in cloud-based technology, empowering our workforce to be fully mobile and moving to modern workplaces that enable collaboration, talent recruitment and innovation. Yet some of the levers deserve another look to determine if our programs are big enough.

We all know that hope is not a strategy, but this research shows us that if your moves are big enough, you can super charge your company.