The CEO of a London-based professional services firm that my colleagues and I worked with met with her extended management team during the first week of each month. She began each meeting by reiterating the company's strategy and key priorities for the year. She was delighted when an employee engagement survey revealed that 84% of her staff had a clear understanding of the organization's top priorities. She felt like her efforts to communicate strategy were paying off.
Her leadership team then completed my execution survey, asking them to explain the strategy in their own words and list their top three to five priorities for the next few years. CEOs were disappointed to find that their strategy descriptions were all over the place with little overlap. Among her direct reports, only a third of her people can name even two of her five strategic priorities for the company (the same goals she discusses at every executive meeting). It was less than 1.
This CEO was the norm, not the exception. Most leaders believe that constant communication is key to leading execution, and they think they're doing a great job. The data tend to show otherwise. Across more than 500 companies, on average only 56% of distributed leaders can name at least one of their company's top priorities. Simply put, the most trusted leader in an organization responsible for executing strategy is given five chances to list the battles the company must win, and half of them say he doesn't even list one. I couldn't do that. The situation worsens as you move down the organization. Only 44 percent of his members on the top team can rank the company's priorities in their top three, and that number drops to just over a third of his direct reports. Additionally, only half of distributed leaders say they can easily explain their company's strategy, and an additional 17 percent say they generally understand the strategy but are unsure if it's the right direction. Masu.
Most CEOs and senior leaders I work with who communicate constantly say they are surprised when data shows how little strategy is understood across the organization. However, the frequency of communication is not the issue. 90% of middle managers agree that top leaders communicate about strategy often enough.So how can we communicate so much? Is the yield that low?
Because communication does not equal understanding. Shared context does. Successful companies have a shared context: a shared understanding of what matters, why it matters, how the parts fit together, what works and what doesn't. Create.
Shared context cannot be measured by the amount of input, or content being communicated. Results are the only thing that matters, and how well key leaders understand them matters. It comes from constant efforts to build and strengthen common understanding with the leaders who matter most.
Here are four ways to build a shared context.
1. Choose a simple song that everyone can hum. Strategic communication must be clear, and to be clear it must be simple. Remind everyone about the reset question. Six questions for teams to ask when resetting strategy: What is the situation and how will this change? What is success? Where should we play? How can I win? What will stop us? And what should we do? Senior team members should collaborate on: What success looks like, what the battle must be won (MWB), and why it matters. If your entire leadership and executive team can't express your strategy in short sentences that refer to the same points, you're failing to create a shared context. The starting point is the communication you send. All company-wide announcements must pass through a filter. Does this strengthen our strategy and his MWB? If so, explain how, and if not, ask why.
2. Show me what it's like to win. Success at the finish line is important. Consistently linking to the definition of success for both strategy cycle and year strengthens the context. Everyone wants to win. When you know where you want to reach the finish line, you can better align your efforts and make daily tradeoffs to get there. By consistently linking his top priorities to where he wanted to be at the end of his three years, the London-based CEO was able to increase common ground after the survey results.
3. Discussions, not lectures. Shared context is built into discussions, allowing discussions via email, Slack, or even virtual sharing platforms. Review the previous meeting's agenda and the time allocation between explanations and conversation. If it's not about the majority, you can't build a shared context. Building a shared context comes from having frequent formal and informal conversations with distributed leaders about what's working, what's not working, and what they're seeing. Resist the urge to communicate and make sure you are listening and talking.
4. Discuss what goes wrong. Discussing what isn't working is just as important as discussing what is working. Even companies that receive positive feedback from initial communications often fail to update the organization on progress. Follow-up conversations about MWB progress and why things work or don't work build a shared context. Having clear, regularly updated scoreboard metrics for each MWB is also an effective way to reinforce this common understanding.
Offices are a great way to foster shared context. Steve Jobs knew the power of discussion and conversation in creating a shared context. While designing buildings for Pixar, he moved from designing multiple buildings to designing a single large building. In the center was an atrium designed to encourage employee interaction and unscheduled collaboration.John Lasseter, Pixar The former chief creative officer said he has “never seen a building that fosters collaboration and creativity like this.” Chris Kane, former head of corporate real estate at the BBC, similarly prioritized the strategic asset of real estate over further strategy and context when he launched White City in London and redeveloped Broadcasting House. You can also create a context for collaboration and creativity around the virtual water cooler, but this requires a clear focus and not something left to chance.
Excerpted with permission Survive, reset, and thrive: Leading breakthrough growth strategies in uncertain times (Kogan Page, February 27, 2024).
