Translating your strategy

But equally, our experience shows the difficulty comes in translating that strategy into something meaningful and tangible that others within the organisation will understand and connect with. How do you take everyone on the same journey, from awareness to understanding to implementation? It’s not that other people don’t have the ability to “get it”, they perhaps don’t have the same enthusiasm – usually because the strategy isn’t clearly and concisely communicated.

It may not even answer the most important question of all: ‘What’s in it for me?’

Translating strategy at task level is fundamental to its success. What does that mean for Nick in finance? What does he need to do differently to play his part?

Executive teams can often miss the opportunity to translate their strategic plan into an implementation plan. One that their employees can understand and be enrolled in delivering. One that helps Nick in finance or, Debbie in Customer Service, understand the critical part they play.

Excuse the cliché, but there’s a real need to have a thread that runs through a business that allows people to see where they’re going, understand the part they play and how this affects what they do on a daily and weekly basis.  

Our Roadmap approach is a structured way of connecting your strategy all the way through your business to the objectives of individual team members. If we take Nick from finance as our example again, he should know what he personally has to do at a task level to impact the finance team, his division and also the business.  The Roadmap model shows this in a visual way, so that on a one- pager, Nick can see the thread that links what he does all the way through the business to the divisional objectives and finally up to organisational goals.