Your strategy is clear to you. Is it clear to your people?
Is your strategy clear and compelling, and truly guides decisions in your business?
I've seen strategies that read: "be innovative," "drive growth," "customer centric" They sound inspiring, but they don't guide choices. As strategy expert Richard Rumelt writes, "bad strategy" is fluffy goals and wish lists; the hallmark of bad strategy is 'mistaking goals for strategy.' And I see this constantly.
In my consulting work and research, leaders have told me that this is exactly where execution unravels. More than half of the Executives I interviewed said their organisation lacked a clear and compelling strategy resulting in people interpretting it in their own way, and initiatives ended up colliding.
By contrast, strategies that gained traction were sharp and compelling, with deliberate choices about where to play, how to win, and crucially - what not to do. They were grounded in market realities, competitor moves, risks and opportunities. The choices fit together, each one reinforcing the others.
A good strategy isn't about making all work "fit", that leaves people confused. The point is clarity of direction and scope, so people know which work truly matters and which doesn't.
Most strategies aren't unclear because nobody thought hard enough. They're unclear because the trade-offs were never forced. Writing the document is the easy part. Getting a leadership team to agree out loud what they will not do is the work, and it's what Strategic Planning is for.
So, what makes a good strategy?
- Insights and diagnosis: a clear view of the market, customers, risks, opportunities, and challenges in relation to your current or potential value proposition
- Direction & scope: long-term beliefs and mid to near-term choices - where the organisation is heading, what's in, and what's out
- Advantage & trade-offs: how it will win, and what it won't do
- Fit & coherence: choices that reinforce each other
- Clear measures: how success will be tracked
- Mobilisation: simple enough to explain and rally people behind
Gone are the days of defining strategy in isolation. The best strategies draw on insights from staff, stakeholders, and customers, and they're built to flex as conditions change.
My research echoed these insights. Executives I interviewed emphasised that effective strategies were simple, clear choices with measures to assess progress. When strategies were unclear, execution faltered. Teams improvised direction, silos optimised for themselves, and trust eroded.
So, what can organisations do differently?
- Ground strategy in insights: involve staff, stakeholders, and customers, and build in agility to adjust
- Focus the work: make the hard calls on which initiatives advance the strategy and stop the rest
- Build feedback loops: test assumptions, surface blind spots early, and change course when needed
- Measure what matters: track outcomes that show if choices are creating impact
This is part of lever 2 (Strategic Clarity & Alignment) of the Strategy Execution by Design Model. See the full framework →
Not sure which of the seven conditions is holding your execution back? Take the Strategy Execution Maturity Model Assessment →
Written by Rebecca Reti, strategy and execution consultant working with boards and executive teams across Australia and New Zealand.