Number 137 – The Strategy Deployment Chain

Ensure the links in the strategy deployment chain are maintained and correctly structured.

Practitioners: integrative and strategic

What does it take to ensure the links in the strategy deployment chain are maintained and correctly structured?  Building a process that defines the chains and structures them correctly is the first step.  Understanding success in the process is just as important as the first.  Let’s explore this a little more deeply.

I encourage my clients to establish a quarterly strategy deployment cycle.  Regardless, one of the greatest breakdowns in strategy deployment is never reaching the line level with meaningful commitments and agreements.  If creating a condition of readiness is the test for completion, how are you testing your process?

The iterative distribution, interpretation, negotiation, and acceptance of certain measurable and meaningful performance outcomes must reach the value creation levels of our organization.  This is easier said than done.  To ensure the links in the strategy deployment chains are maintained and correctly structured requires following the message as it is disseminated across all functions and levels of the organization.  Many times, the links are broken by simple assumption. 

Building the Strategy Deployment Chain 

When strategy deployment look like X by Y – the agreement to create some X condition by some Y future date – we are getting closer.  The conditions are often vague and immeasurable, and the date is rarely included, or it is set for December 31^st of the year.  What good is accomplishing a goal one the last day of the year?   Set a realistic date and see what happens to your team.  A credible date make everything come to life. 

Can we follow the goals as they are cascaded across the organization?  Can we see the relationship between functions and organizational levels?  These are chains that bind us together.  They make the process difficult, but they make the process realistic and meaningful.  You might as well just quit playing the strategy deployment game if you’re not going to do it well. 

These strategic imperatives provide the focus for the accountability cycles.  No meaningful and measurable goals, and our accountability cycles are an exercise in frustration and confusion.  The thread must be woven through the fabric of our organization.  Then we can feel more confident that our process improvement efforts are aligned with our strategic imperatives.  This is the connection between the strategy system and the performance system, and it passes through the management system, if and only if, it is correctly structured and maintained. 

Questions For Your Consideration

Where do you see power or force present in your organization?

Where are improved relational processes needed to overcome some barrier to better organizational performance?

How does encouragement enable progress?

How do you respond to requests for help in removing barriers?

I hope you find this inaugural idea both familiar and thoughtful.  I hope you find a new way to overcome an old problem.

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