How To Lead A Quest

15 Strategy for Breakfast

It is commonly said that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast'. I daresay this is because breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and good strategy is so nourishing.

Just because we have a potentially brilliant strategy doesn't mean we can then simply make upward flapping gestures at the rest of the organisation and say, ‘Make it so!'

Strategy needs to be communicated effectively — and frequently.

And just like you don't hide a good breakfast right at the back of the cupboard, you don't hide good strategy behind layers of hierarchy, or buried deep within bloated PowerPoint presentations or documents on the intranet.^[1]

BUT CHANGE IS GOOD, RIGHT?

In theory, yes, change is good. But in practice — not necessarily. At least, not for everyone. Some of the ‘stop' decisions from the previous chapter may mean making tough decisions, which could mean redundancies and a cutting back of investment in some business units. These tough decisions are normally dressed in corporate code — we use terms like ‘downsizing', ‘productivity' and ‘working smarter' to explain what is also people losing their jobs.^[2]

But — if you're playing your cards right — this type of thing should actually come as little surprise to your people. You'll have been openly communicating on internal platforms, and sharing learning and the collective hunches about where the enterprise ...