All strategies have a lifecycle, and they cannot last forever because context is in continuous change. Yet, some strategies are designed outdated.
I’m currently thinking and researching about the strategy lifecycle, and how the adoption speed by the organization influences the design of it.
Strategy lifecycle stages
Genesis of the strategy
Strategies start emerging within the organizations in very different ways. Some are because there is a new quarter and that’s the company’s moment to sit down and “design” a strategy. Others appear when people feel lost and lacking direction, asking for a clear direction.
Regardless of the origin, there’s an event that sparks the need of a strategy, formal or informal one. See Strategy types here.
Strategy designed/written/approved
I consider that strategies have different formats, some are written, others are drawn, and others use a format that’s useful for the people for that company.
Regardless of the format, there’s a moment when the strategy is considered mature enough, “approved”, and communicated to the rest of the organization.
My approach here is to be collaborative, to increase adoption, super important to reduce the time for the next step. You can see some of the ideas here.
Yet, on many organizations, this is done in isolation, and then communicated to the rest of the organization. We will see some of the consequences of this approach, and how to adopt other styles.
Strategy “fully” adopted
“Fully” adopted here means enough people understand the strategy, and they are able to make day to day decisions to be closer to overcome the high stake business challenge.
Enough here will depend on the strategy itself, the company structure, and the context you’re in.
In some cases, I found that if 2 people within the key teams are able to push forward the strategy is enough. Other times, you need way bigger adoption.
But here, the more teams are involved, the more structure you have, and different layers of reporting, that influences the adoption speed.
During this phase, you focus on the actual strategy execution and how you check its impact, evaluating the expected outcomes vs the reality. This helps you to know how good are you doing.
Strategy outdated
At some point, the context or the purpose will change. You will learn, and the diagnosis and direction are no longer relevant for the high stake business challenge. You will either evolve it, or just replace it with something that addresses what’s more important right now.
The stages are non-linear
This is the biggest mindset shift I had when thinking about strategy.
If you think of strategy as a plan, a linear plan, that strategy is doomed (if we can call it even a strategy).
Strategy is in the complex and complicated domains, therefore linearity won’t apply here.
Which means that you can switch from phase at any time given the situation at hand.
And those moments vary a lot.
There are no single reasons of why you need to go back and iterate your strategy, but it is better to face the reality that it happens. So, you can prepare for it.
Another way to see the non-linearity is that it can be certain scenarios that a strategy doesn’t go through the steps, and just reaches outdated at any point, triggering the cycle again, at any moment in time.
Those events that trigger an iteration are learning opportunities, and those vary a lot, they can be:
The market condition changed
The strategy was based on the wrong diagnosis
Certain people in the organization vetoes the strategy
Strategy adoption
The adoption happens in multiple phases.
Awareness: “I heard about the new strategy.”
Understanding: “I know what it means for the company.”
Buy-in: “I believe this is the right direction.”
Commitment: “I am changing my daily work to support it.”
Advocacy: “I actively promote this strategy to others.”
We tend to assume that leadership and management would be strategy advocates, but that’s so far from the reality.
And not everything happens simultaneously, strategy advocacy takes time, effort, patience, and commitment.
On the other hand, each phase requires a minimum of adoption for a strategy to succeed.
One could assume that the adoption curve is based on the common view of “cascading-effect”. The strategy starts on the C-level/board, and cascades down to business units, departments, teams, individuals.
Even though that’s could be common in some organizations, that’s not the only approach for a strategy. As I explain in my post Engineering Strategy is a Fractal, those strategies can happen in multiple levels.
So, those adoption curves, and the people need for each phase, and how many phases there are, will depend on the purpose, scope, and context of each strategy at hand.
That’s why you might have adoption curves between phases.
In order for the strategy to be fully adopted within the company, first we need the “buy in” and set the foundation with these teams.
Understand the phases and people involved
Here is a proposal that you can extend/adapt
Genesis adoption: People near to the high stake business challenge.
Usually very small groups, enough to start momentum to create the problem awareness.
In my case, it is usually 3-5 people that I start exchanging ideas in a very informal way. Mainly:
Does this problem exist? Do you see what I’m seeing? Is this the right problem to address to achieve our business goals?
Here I am to find the people with influence that can champion the strategy in the spaces that I cannot be.
This group sets the initial purpose and context. Determine if it is enough important, and what needs to be addressed. The problem space.
This people also identifies the right people that will help them to have the right conversation.
Strategy designed/approved adoption. Ad hoc teams of up to 10-15 people
Making sure that the strategy gets the right adoption happens before the strategy is approved. The strategy isn’t decided by the 3-5 people, but with a group of the key people with enough influence and authority to make this happen.
In my case, I think about this group about up to 10-15 people. Not more, since I might facilitate some workshops to:
- Verify the problem space.
- Define the direction.
Here, I suggest creating an ad hoc team with the right people on the possible areas that the strategy will land.
Sometimes we think about those people like only tech, or product-tech, but we need to think beyond that. Most of the successful strategies I had I involved People Partners, and Head of Ops to be sure we gain the early support on key departments that we would need their support.
You can learn more about how to set up the right ad hoc team in this post
The good thing is that these people could also create mini-workshop with their teams to start gaining insights, and start involving people before the strategy is decided.
Sometimes we have to trade the speed to strategy approved/designed in favor of a faster strategy adoption and execution.
Strategy full adopted: Involving the rest of the teams
In order to reach this phase, leveraging the ad hoc team or structure you decided, the key people understood the strategy before it got approved, and after approval, it wasn’t a surprise but a strategy with a vision that included their input.
Here, you don’t need all the organization to follow the strategy, but enough teams/structure to overcome the high stakes business challenge.
I have been involved in strategies that required + 6 teams to be in completely sync, and strategies that required 1 platform team to be very supported to make a vendor switch.
You need to adapt to your case.
Strategy outdated: Now, it is part of the culture
When a strategy succeeds, it becomes part of the culture. Now, everyone does that because it worked.
The new people that joins the company, that’s their reality, they don’t know the past. You created momentum.
But you also created inertia to change, because it worked.
So, the worst thing that could happen is that you achieved your goals, but with the wrong methods.
Because then, those wrong methods could become the culture.
Which ones? For example, asking people to work extra hours. Now, if you face a challenge, the company culture will be put extra hours.
Yes, you need to overcome your high stakes business challenge, but be careful of not compromising the future. Sure, if there’s no future, go for it. Yet, think that there are approaches that aren’t sustainable in the long term.
On the next post I will continue on this same topic going deeper on some areas of:
How lead times between phases affects each other?
What happens with multiple strategies happening in parallel?
How the system aims to protect itself? What happens if the power structures resists the strategy?
Reply to the post with some questions you have from this post, and I will address them on the next!
