Why Business Strategy Doesn’t Resonate with Employees

And the Aimcast AI Solution

An article by Gary F Grates

Each year, CEOs task corporate communications staff with communicating the organization’s strategy— approach, customer segments, value proposition, portfolio, priority areas, resources, outcomes.

And each year, employees report back they don’t understand the strategy and believe communications must be improved!

The result of this miss is that organizations fail to achieve stated goals to propel the business forward.? Why has the lack of strategy comprehension among employees been so prevalent for so long?? Our hypothesis, having been involved in turning this situation around for FORTUNE 500 companies, is four-fold:

(1) Convey Strategy at Too High Level

Business Strategy continues to be presented as a complex subject only relatable to senior management.

(2) Use Jargon to Explain Strategy

Communicators fall prey to communicating strategy in the most technical terms, alienating the workforce.

(3) Fail to Imbed in Operations

The most often referenced reason by employees for a lack of strategy comprehension is the lack of alignment inside the business, especially within each discrete area of the organization.

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(4) Lack of Personal Connection

People can’t relate to strategy because it’s not personal.? It doesn’t reengage them on a personal level.? It doesn’t speak to them. ?And critically, it doesn’t relate to their day-to-day work.

The Promise of AI

?Aimcast, the AI-powered individualized organizational communications technology, solves these challenges through:

(1)??Transformed Content: reflecting the method and language most accepted by each individual audience member. AI transforms content into multiple formats, languages, and detail levels, to optimize absorption of the message by each person.

(2) Personal Content: Providing personalized stories and examples for employees to engage with. Strategy is conveyed in authentic voices and reinforced from voices throughout the organization.

(3) Targeted Content: Reaching specific employee groups in the organization and generating an on-going discussion around strategy that people learn from, tie to their own job functions, and share. An AI-predicted relevance engine surfaces information for each individual, at the times when that information is calculated to have the most impact.

(4) Individualized Enterprise Knowledgebases: Curating the information each person needs (from within the system and a host of integrations) and using AI to provide specific answers to employee questions, such as “What are my divisions priorities this quarter?”

Organizational performance is most impacted by successful strategy execution.? And successful strategy execution is only achieved by employee buy-in and commitment.? There is no time for anything less in today’s global marketplace.? CEOs, COOs and internal communications leaders no longer have an excuse with regard to employee apathy regarding business strategy.

Employing new technology such as Aimcast changes the dynamic in business strategy implementation.