Beyond the Babble: Leadership Communication That Drives Results

Chapter 3. Do: What Do You Need Employees to Do?

What do you need employees to do? It's a simple question, but many leaders find it very hard to answer. We recently met with the executive team at a mid-sized company that was launching a new strategy. For illustrative purposes, we'll refer to the company as the Land of Oz. They presented the business plan they intended to share with employees. The presentation—only thirteen slides—was short by business plan standards, but was a typical review. There were five goals, such as increase sales to $5.5 billion, achieve 98-percent customer satisfaction, and improve productivity by 7 percent. Those goals resulted in six business outcomes, such as becoming the "most valued supplier of our customers and ...