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Question Everything

Review Your Strategy Twice a Year

AS A LEADER, how confident are you that you’re doing everything right? How do you know if things are working as they should? How do you know when it’s time to retire a particular product or process or to move into a new line of service? Let’s say you have a sound overall strategy—every indication is that you’re on the right path as far as your overall focus is concerned. But are you sure everything associated with that strategy is being executed well and, perhaps more important, still fits the strategy? Are you sure everything’s on track? Some things you can measure, of course, so you should have a good idea of where you stand with the budget, your team’s level of engagement, and customer service. But how are the components that make up the strategy, such as products, processes, services, marketing, pricing, and so forth, holding up?

One of the traps that inexperienced leaders fall into is assuming that if the overall strategy is sound, then the individual elements must be working just fine. That isn’t always the case, especially if there are many moving parts involved. It’s easy to get caught up in the “if the strategy is working, we must know what we’re doing” syndrome. But here’s where your continued development as a leader comes in: You have to learn that the right time to question everything is precisely when everything seems to be working. It’s dangerous to think you’ve got everything figured out for that’s usually when trouble sneaks up on you. At the same time, however, it’s counterproductive to second-guess your every move. You have to trust that you and the team have built the right set of strategic drivers, and focus on execution. So, what’s a smart leader to do?

Review the Elements of Your Strategy Twice a Year

There is a way to balance healthy paranoia with the “full steam ahead” approach when it comes to evaluating the elements of your strategy (see Chapter 10). Twice a year, meet with your team and conduct a half-day strategy review session to ensure your action plan is on the right track. Schedule the meeting for the morning (when the team’s energy level is high) and focus on the simple question: “How are we doing?” Establish a set of operating principles for the meeting so that everyone understands the ground rules. Among other things, agree to let all opinions be heard, remain objective in your assessments, and complete the meeting on time. Oh, and one more thing: This meeting works best when you step out of your Comfort Zone as the leader and participate as a regular member of the team. Yes, you might have to break a tie here and there, or weigh in if you have information that the others don’t, but resist the urge to use a directive style here. Your objective is an honest evaluation of how the strategic components are working, and you won’t get it if you’re constantly interrupting or dominating the conversation. For at least two mornings a year, take a step back and listen to what your team members have to say; let them drive the dialog and write on the whiteboards (think of it as a development opportunity for you and a chance to assess the quality of their thinking, teamwork, etc.).

Once you’ve set the ground rules as a team, there’s a simple tool and process that will help you find the answers. First, list everything you can think of in your portfolio, that is, everything your team is responsible for delivering. When I was leading Organization Development (OD) teams in my corporate life, we used to say that everything we did was a process, tool, program, or service; our entire list of deliverables would naturally fall into one of these four buckets. Whatever the main categories might be for you, try to fit your inventory into some type of structure; this will show whether you’re under-or overweight in one element of your strategy. For example, the first time we listed everything we did, we noticed that we were woefully short on employee self-service tools, so that became something that we tried to drive with our new strategy.

Now that you have your version of programs, tools, processes, and services up on the board, evaluate each item in your portfolio using the Strategy Review Model found in Figure 7. Draw this four-box structure on the board, and write your mission and strategy statements above the grid to remind you of what you’re trying to accomplish. Then, let the team fill in the boxes, moving each item from the inventory onto the grid. Try to keep quiet during this process (I told you this would require you to get out of your Comfort Zone!). Sit back, observe, and listen; let the team lead the discussion.

Obviously, the goal here is to see if everything still fits the strategy, and whether or not you need to improve execution. The easiest decision involves those items that don’t fit your strategy and aren’t being well executed (the Stop quadrant). Shut down those programs, processes, or services. They are wasting resources, customers probably aren’t happy, and they’re hindering your plan going forward. Assign someone the task of coming back to the team with a “stop” plan, and move on (don’t solve this particular challenge in the meeting). For deliverables that are being well executed and fit the strategy (the Continue quadrant), congratulations—these are keepers; simply continue to maximize these items and reevaluate again in six months. The elements of your portfolio that still fit the strategy, but aren’t being well executed (the Improve quadrant) are items that show promise, so it’s worthwhile to try to make them more effective. Again, assign someone to be “on point” for coming up with an improvement plan that you can review at your next regular meeting. Finally, if you find that you’re doing some things really well, but they don’t fit your strategy anymore (the Export quadrant), it’s time to figure out where in the organization you can move those deliverables (for example, we would routinely find things that we were doing in OD that were better suited for another HR group’s mission and strategy). You may have to give up the resources used to execute this process or program, but if it doesn’t fit your strategy, you need to do the right thing and move it into the right department. Take your time, and discuss each item thoroughly; the model helps you determine whether everything still fits and what you need to work on in terms of continuous improvement.

This simple format seems to work well as a biannual review process. As you “unpack the bag” and objectively evaluate your portfolio, it also gives you a chance to evaluate your team members. What are they excited about? How do they assess and discuss each item? Who’s being objective vs. lobbying for a favorite area of accountability? How do they debate with one another? Are people interacting constructively? By putting your ego aside and allowing the team to lead what is a critical evaluation of your complete portfolio, you’re developing the ability to see your team and its deliverables from an objective point of view. This is great practice for the larger leadership roles ahead, where you’ll be expected to excel at this type of activity. If you’ve never conducted this type of meeting before, set one up and give it a go. It’s a great way to hone your strategy, develop and assess the team, and work on your own leadership skills, all at the same time.

Bootstrap Takeaways

Review Your Strategy Twice a Year

1. Step back and take an objective look at your deliverables: What are you doing well? How do they fit your strategy?

2. Let the team take the lead—this process is an effective way to develop your peoples’ strategic thinking skills, and you can observe how they work together as a team.

3. Be prepared to stop or give up some elements of your portfolio when they no longer fit your current strategy.