Alex Brueckmann is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of “The Strategy Legacy” and CEO of Brueckmann Strategy Consultants Ltd.
When the CEO of a global company got in touch, their request was a bit of a challenge: “We just finished a strategy project with this big consulting firm, and we have a leadership meeting coming up in a few weeks. Can you help us make sense of the strategy and connect it to our culture and vision? And by the way, we still need that vision.”
I cannot say that this is uncommon. For many executives, driving a successful strategy initiative feels like navigating a maze blindfolded. It might be the first time they lead it. They might feel a lack of skill. The stakes are high, and despite the best intentions, some common pitfalls almost guarantee failure. Let’s explore three of these blunders and, more importantly, how to avoid them.
1. Outsourcing Strategy To Consultants Or Going It Alone
Especially with limited experience, it’s tempting to rely heavily on consultants. But this approach is based on a false understanding of what consultants do.
A strategy is the choices you make to win. A consultant cannot make those choices for you as they don’t understand the organizational context to the necessary extent, such as leadership acumen and culture. They might provide analyses and input based on their expertise. But you are the one who will have to make the tough calls.
On the flip side, leaders with previous strategy success might overestimate their ability to facilitate a strategy process themselves. While executives bring invaluable insights, many lack the experience and frameworks to structure and guide the whole process effectively.
A common consequence is the lack of strategy and an overemphasis on planning, because that’s what leaders are typically good at. Many think that their “strategic plan” is a strategy, when in fact it is often just a list of projects defining who does what by when and with how much budget.
The consequences:
• Strategy that sounds good in theory but fails to reflect organizational realities.
• “Strategy” that does not deserve the label because it is more a plan than a strategy.
• Implementation challenges stemming from unclear priorities that overburden individuals, teams and the entire organization.
What To Do Instead
Leverage external support as partners—not owners—of the process. Their role should be to facilitate discussions and challenge assumptions while ensuring the final strategy is co-created by your leadership team. If you’re facilitating internally, ensure you’re combining proven frameworks and methodologies. You may want to consider investing in professional facilitation training or engaging an experienced external facilitator to guide the process. (Disclosure: My company helps with this.)
When hiring an external facilitator, start by clarifying your objectives and desired outcomes to ensure their approach aligns with your needs. Facilitation is a highly fragmented market. Look for someone with vast experience in strategy facilitation, not necessarily with vast industry experience, as specific industry knowledge can potentially cloud their facilitation and make them drift into consulting more than you want.
Strong interpersonal skills are the second factor to consider when selecting a facilitator. Pay attention to how they listen, ask questions and adapt to your unique context. If uncertain, start with a smaller project to assess their effectiveness before committing to a larger engagement. Avoid one-size-fits-all solutions, overly complex jargon or facilitators who don’t invest in understanding your organization’s challenges.
Similarly, when deciding which strategy training to take, choose practical application over theory. Trainings offered by boutique firms often provide more relevant tools than courses by business schools.
2. Neglecting To Enable Leaders Through Strategy Training
A well-crafted strategy is worthless if leaders don’t understand it or lack the skills to translate it into actionable plans. Often, executives assume their leaders inherently know how to move strategy into action. But strategy is a discipline that requires development and practice.
Without proper training, leaders often struggle to communicate strategy effectively to their teams to make it relevant and actionable. They may also struggle with identifying and prioritizing initiatives that support the strategy and aligning individual targets and departmental goals with overarching strategic objectives.
The consequences:
• Fragmented execution as leaders interpret the strategy inconsistently.
• Frustration and disengagement among middle management.
• A feeling that strategy is just adding more and more work on top of everything else.
What To Do Instead
Equip leaders throughout the business with tools to communicate and operationalize the strategy. Build their skill to talk about strategy in ways their teams understand, as a prerequisite for everyone to realize what’s in it for them, rationally and emotionally. And eventually, train them in your framework of choice to translate strategy into action.
3. Jumping Straight To Strategy Without Laying The Foundation
Many leaders rush to define a strategy without first ensuring the organization is ready to embrace it. This “strategy-first” approach overlooks critical foundational elements such as culture, leadership alignment and clarity around purpose and vision.
A strategy is the vehicle that drives your business toward the desired future, encapsulated in a vision. While doing that, the business fulfills its mission to provide a good or service to its clients, and with that fulfills its purpose and creates an impact. Without being grounded in that way, strategy becomes about profit maximization at all costs. And that usually doesn’t quite resonate with the people working for you.
Skipping this groundwork leads to strategies misaligned with organizational values and unable to create the impact you’d like to see, along with resistance to change, as employees feel blindsided by top-down decisions. It can also lead to extra work and attempts to stitch strategy, leadership and culture together.
The consequences:
• High levels of friction during execution.
• Erosion of trust between leadership and employees.
• Increased risk of strategy abandonment.
What To Do Instead
Before crafting your strategy, take the time to assess and strengthen the foundation. Start by clarifying your organization’s purpose and desired impact, vision and core values. Then engage leaders in discussions to align on priorities and direction. Evaluate your change readiness and address gaps proactively.
With the right approach, organizations can move from strategic intent to tangible results—and build momentum along the way. If you find yourself committing some of these mistakes, remember that you aren’t the first one and you won’t be the last. Just make sure you learn from the experience.
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