why aren't they working 2004 v2a

8/4/2019 Why Aren't They Working 2004 v2a

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Why Aren’t They

Working on MyStrategy?

By

Francis Wade

These materials may not be reproduced, publicly displayed, or used to create

derivate products in any form without

prior written permission from:

Framework Consulting, Inc.

3389 Sheridan Street #434

Hollywood, FL 33021

954-447-4412www.fwconsulting.com

© 2004 Framework Consulting, Inc.



Why Aren’t They Working on My Strategy?

©2004 Copyright Framework Consulting, Inc. 3

The solution, according to the authors, is to create an environment in which the strategy

is known, understood and used by each and every employee. Armed with an

understanding of the overall strategy (e.g. an improved experience for the customer)employees would then take the appropriate actions on their own initiative, as long as they

possessed a modicum of interest in the company’s future (and therefore their own.)

Unfortunately, this was easier said than done with the traditional strategic planning tools.

Up until recently, every company’s strategy followed much the same format, with the

document containing a great deal of MBA-derived prose. There would be sectionsanalyzing the external and internal environment, a section outlining high level goals, a

section with milestones and a section describing projects to fulfill those milestones and

goals.

The strategic plan would then be laid out as a series of concurrent projects, described in

tens (and sometimes) hundreds of pages of detail. While working through this list of

projects, the question that could not be easily answered was “WHY?” Why were these

projects chosen? What is the rationale? How do the different projects work together to produce the bottom-line result? What Kaplan and Norton called the “strategic

hypothesis,” the essential cause and effect logic underlying the strategy, would be buriedin the words. It would be extremely difficult for even the trained reader to extract the

strategy, let alone a semi-literate front-line worker who is seeing a strategy document for

the very first time.

Take the example of a bank teller who is faced with the challenge of providing better

customer service. The instruction may come in the form of a project from managementto reduce average time spent with each customer. The teller who follows the instruction

to the best of his ability, could very well be the one who winds up getting feedback from

their customers that is negative, with complaints of “abrupt treatment.”

If he could answer the question “Why am I focusing on giving better service?” he might

come up with the true answer which could, for example, be “improving customer service

is our way of gaining market share from our competitors at MegaBank, which justmerged with SuperBank to create a colossus that we think is giving increasingly poor

service.” Keeping in mind the overall goal, the tellers might be able to improve the

measured result while simultaneously assisting in the goal of gaining market share.

Even with the best of intentions, often the traditional tools of strategic planning do not

lend themselves to easy understanding and therefore action. To get the strategy into thehands of the employees, some companies have tried passing out the strategy in its

traditional form, and the vast majority of employees were unable to understand its

contents well enough to choose the right supporting actions. For those who were not inthe actual strategic planning retreat, the language of the document was impossible to

decipher. In the average company, over 80% of the employees did not know the strategy

of the company (according to Kaplan and Norton.) The predictable result? The vastmajority of annual strategies wind up not being implemented.



3389 Sheridan Street #434

Hollywood, FL 33021954-323-2552

www.fwconsulting.com

why aren't they working 2004 v2a

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