Welcome to the 29th edition of The Pulse, your bi-weekly newsletter of Insights for Strategy Leaders. And welcome to all of the new subscribers since the last edition!
Click here to get The Pulse on LinkedIn.
In this edition:
- 🌎 Creating a Unified View of Strategy and Execution
- 💢 6 Unhealthy Types of Strategic Objectives (and how to fix them)
- 📅 Blueprint is next week
- 📹 Sneak Peak of Elate
🌎 Creating a Unified View of Strategy and Execution
As we quickly approach the close of summer and head into fall, things pick up quite a bit around here at Elate. From meetings with Strategy and Operations Leaders about 2025 planning to a focus on helping organizations finish the year well, there certainly isn’t a shortage of discussion during this peak time of year.
Throughout these conversations, an area of focus that continues to surface is the intent most organizations have to accomplish two things: tool consolidation and centralization of where and how decisions are made.
While it might not seem like it on the surface, these two items are heavily related and work together to create simplicity and clarity.
After a year that left a sense of uncertainty in the market, organizations are focused on reducing noise and distractions for employees while streamlining the way information is brought together to make faster, more efficient decisions.
Companies want better cross-functional alignment with a unified view of how strategy and execution come together. Time and time again, it’s the area of greatest focus for Leaders.
So, why is this topic more relevant than ever?
Well, many organizations have been going through different phases of expansion and consolidation over the past 12 months. From RIFs and layoffs to budget freezes and cuts, many Leaders are finding that the previous few years of growth were excessive. Boards of Directors and Leaders want to get back to the fundamentals of building sound, efficient companies, not unhealthy growth at all costs. While for others, the proliferation of AI and machine learning is driving more focus towards optimizing the decision-making process.
Regardless of the exact reason for each organization, it’s clear there is a renewed focus on aligning departments across the business on strategic priorities and creating a sense of purpose and clarity for team members.
To do this, it’s imperative that every employee is playing from the same sheet of music.
Leadership has to be ruthless in how they set priorities, but more importantly, organizations have to be hyperfocused on ensuring those priorities are clear, present, and understood by team members.
Gone are the days of projects without clear outcomes or misalignment to the overall direction of the organization. As we move into 2025, Leaders want to ensure teams are focused on the right things.
Not only does this ensure that resources aren’t being wasted and that workstreams are clearly aligned to those key initiatives, but by creating this unified view of strategy for employees, Leaders also benefit from a better understanding of what's really happening throughout the business.
Clear alignment and connection brings challenges into the light and allows for a healthy forum to overcome obstacles or pour gas on what’s working. It allows an individual in Engineering to understand how their work is contributing to counterparts in Sales or Customer Experience, or how fundraising efforts in nonprofit organizations provide opportunities for a vision to be realized.
If everything is connected and we create an environment where work is done with intentionality, then we are able to place signals throughout our strategic plan that notifies us of bends before they become breaks.
Further, this idea of a connected, unified view of all initiatives and measurable outcomes helps expose wasted resources and software spend. It creates accountability and transparency where it never existed in the past.
If we are building our strategy in a way where outcomes rule the day, then initiatives should point directly towards those outcomes.
By creating a unified view of these initiatives and outcomes for Leadership to regularly review, we are building an operating rhythm that drives accountability and use of tools that are deemed ‘must-haves’ for your organization.
However, if we are regularly seeing out-of-date updates, lack of data, or just a disengagement from one of those so-called ‘critical’ software tools, then it begs the question as to whether that tool truly is essential. Or does the lack of proactive information suggest more of an internal lack of accountability that is creating the disconnect felt by employees regarding the overall strategy of the company?
All this to say, not many companies I meet with are in search of creating more data or introducing more software for the sake of more software. Rather, they want to better contextualize the information they have and understand its impact or relevance to their ability to hit their operating plan.
While I know this sounds great in theory, it isn’t lost on me that change management will likely be critical to success.
However, before giving up or running your head through a wall trying to force people to embrace change, it is important to understand the ‘why’ behind this idea of creating a unified view of strategy and execution.
It is about creating a symbiotic relationship, aimed at benefiting all parties.
For employees, a unified, accessible strategic plan allows them to understand what matters to the business. It creates a sense of ownership that allows them to work more effectively and autonomously, because they understand the priorities and can align their work appropriately.
For Leaders, it shifts us from a reactive approach to decision making, where all of our time is currently spent gathering information, to seeing around corners. We go from reporting on yesterday’s news to breaking news that will have a critical impact on our success or failure.
Heading into 2025 and fall planning, keep in mind that the best strategies are those that are operationalized. As beautiful as a strategy might look on paper or a whiteboard, the proof is in the deliverables and execution.
Creating a unified view of the strategy and execution of your operating plan in a single source is the key to unlocking that for your team.
If you’d like to discuss how that can be a reality for your organization, I’d love to connect. Feel free to reach out directly to me at brooks@goelate.com or reach out to our team today to learn how Elate is helping Leaders bring together vision and execution.
💢 6 Unhealthy Types of Strategic Objectives (and how to fix them)
If you follow Elate on LinkedIn, you may have noticed a fun, daily series we did last week. If not, here is the overview.
Over the past few years, we've helped hundreds of companies sift through the noise by highlighting parts of the plan that, if left unnoticed, can slowly creep up and create chaos.
So each day we highlighted a 'unhealthy' Objective and provided ways to address them. Some of these included:
- Watermelon objectives
- Island objectives
- Babysitter objectives
- Dashboard objectives, and more.
We threw them all in a blog post so you can easily digest them. Hope it's insightful.
📹 Sneak Peak of Elate
I'll probably highlight this more in a future edition, but our team just released a great 1:44 minute video of Elate. If you're interested in seeing the platform, check it out on Youtube below.
That's all for today... have a great rest of your week.
-Brooks
