Obviously, during difficult times, it’s critical that everyone from the executive team to frontline workers remain aligned on the company’s strategy and priorities. But the truth is, when those challenges subside, it is still essential to maintain strategic alignment across the organization if you want the business to perform at the highest level.
One of the keys to maintaining alignment is intentional and sustained communication from the C-suite. In fact, a recent study, Why good strategies fail: Lessons for the C-suite, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, states a top barrier to successful enterprise execution is communication; more specifically, poor communication around the strategy. The study also asked leaders “When strategic initiatives do succeed, what are the main reasons?” No surprise: Good communication was frequently cited as a top factor in achieving success.
That same study discovered that less than half (47 percent) of respondents said the C-suite was involved in communicating strategy. Yet, a recent Forbes Insights report found that 73 percent of executives say they must increase communication to improve strategy execution and employee buy-in.
All of these data points prove two things. One, intentional and sustained communication is absolutely critical if you want to secure strategic alignment across your workforce. And two, the C-suite must be actively involved in both shaping and sharing the story behind the strategy.
James Allen, senior partner at Bain & Company, and author of The Founder’s Mentality, recently said …
“Great CEOs get it: Part of the job is stakeholder alignment. And in many ways, that’s the execution element of a CEO — meaning, for a CEO, execution is communication to stakeholders. They (CEOs) think about who are the stakeholders I need to talk to? For each, what is the right message? And also, what’s the right cadence of delivery?”
Eric Garton, another partner at Bain & Company reinforced this message when he said …
“Most of the CEOs I know spend an inordinate amount of time aligning stakeholders behind their plan. They care both about the content of the messages, but also about the speed at which they are executing those messages and those decisions.”
If you are a business leader or C-suite executive, your takeaway is this …
You own the story behind your strategy.
