Why Strategy needs Excellence and Excellence needs a Strategy

Many of us just focus on the WHAT of their strategy and for sure, the content is essential! It makes the unique selling proposition and/or differentiates from competitors. Consider that the impact of the WHY this Strategy and the HOW to implement it have at least the same importance. Both are needed to make the WHAT happen as change-enabler! And even more as the core are the people of nearly any organization. The WHY is essential for them while the leaders need the HOW to realize the strategy, which is nowadays mainly a transformation or a radical change!

An excellent Strategy is developed from the whole leadership team and carried out by all associates of the organization

Why is this so important?

The best strategy is worthless if it cannot be implemented (fully)! When the implementation is directive top down the risk is high that the leadership team and the employees are not convinced that the strategy is even needed, why shall we change? Even a strong change management approach does not guarantee the success if not all leadership members are (sub)sponsors of the change! Leading different organizations all over the world I always found my way to succeed by finding out:

• who from my team is with me from the very first moment,
• who can be convinced and will be a strong sponsor,
• who cannot be convinced and will cost the team plenty of energy (the saying who is not with you is against you is unfortunately very true!)

Building the right team simultaneous to the process of developing the common Strategy creates the bond of invented here! This guaranties a sustainable approach and leads to success. In my current assignment in 4 years coming from ups and downs of the organization through sustainable improvement to the EFQM R4E (5 star recognition).

Note: This approach is developing strength and is exiting and motivating while fighting with resistance is burning energy and creating team frustration. In this environment empathy is in additon important: I like better to celebrate success with the team instead of celebrating alone and telling myself I am the super hero.

This what happens with your team needs to be duplicated through all organizational layers of the organization, the teams or your team member, the networks,…. It is hard work and I am going to elaborate later how this can be simplified on examples in my current responsibility. Beside the common sense in your team, applying change management enables not only to track content but also turns the associates into believers! Change management sounds complex and scary, do not be afraid it is nothing more than acomprehensive project management.

An excellent Strategy needs an excellent deployment methodology

 What I really like with EFQM is the demanding focus on excellence and sustainability

• in all of the processes and the whole organization
• from the starting point until today
• in the transformation/evolution/revolution to the future of the organization

EFQM is a perfect to develop and assess the Strategy systematically and forces to penetrate the whole organization. And the Strategy doesn’t need to be changed but maybe adjusted and it is the HOW to implement it! We made the R4E award even without having an EFQM expert pursuing our own strategy and excellence approach by just applying the EFQM systematic with an external coach. A true, intrinsic approach.

 More to come in further articles about

• how to develop a sustainable strategy
• how to penetrate the whole organization (simple and real communication)
• why is organization transformation to purpose, network, empowering, transparency and particular experimenting so important in the connected and data driven world
• why is leading with content and by example important in creating maturity
• why and how is COVID19 a unique opportunity and chance for work life balance
• …

Please feel free to comment or to vote with a thumb up/down as you will help me a lot in writing this complete memo.