5 simple ways to improve your strategy

Strategy isn’t just for the boardroom anymore. Your people are now one of your biggest assets when it comes to planning for the future.

For decades, there’s been the same approach to setting strategy: executives and management at the very top determine the best plan of action for the organisation, and then their people work towards implementing it while they oversee progress. But in such a fast-paced world where strategy and brand are more interconnected than ever before, this approach can’t ever truly help organisations to achieve their full potential.

Brand is strategy brought to life

Strategy can sometimes seem like an abstract concept, especially to staff in an organisation who might not be directly involved in setting it. But actually, they’re much more involved with it than they think.

Your brand brings your strategy to life every day through touchpoints – individual experiences which collectively create a perception in the minds of your customers, other stakeholders, and wider communities. It’s therefore incredibly important that they’re delivered in an efficient, consistent, and – most importantly – correct way. And that’s where your people come in…

People deliver your brand experience

Touchpoints are created by your people and brought to life through their actions. Whether it’s answering the phone, writing a letter or even developing an app, your people are tasked with taking something on paper (your strategy) and making it a reality. If they don’t understand or agree with that strategy, then there are bound to be disconnects in the touchpoints they create and deliver.

Why bother?

If something’s worked for this long, do you even need to change? Simply put, yes. We’re living in a world where it’s easier than ever to share ideas and opinions with a huge number of people, which means two things:

It’s much easier for management to gather ideas from their staff, and as more organisations do it, the ones that don’t will stand out, which leads us on to the next point…
Organisations that don’t bother will end up being seen as bad places to work

Getting your staff involved in strategy isn’t only good for how you’re seen as an employer though. As we said above, your people are key to delivering your brand touchpoints, so when they’re happy and involved, they deliver better experiences, which means happier customers, suppliers, and any other external stakeholders. And the long-term benefits to your brand from those high levels of satisfaction are huge.

So…what can you do?

Given how important it is for your people to buy-in to your strategy if they’re going to deliver optimal brand experiences, the question then becomes what’s the best way to achieve that buy-in? Well as always, there’s a long list of things you could try, but here are five simple things you can do to get started.

Get people involved…early

When you’re making strategic decisions, your people can provide some really unique and often overlooked insights into how your customers and other key stakeholders behave, and what their needs and wants are. It’s some of the best market research you can do, and you don’t even need to pay extra for it!

Keep it up

There’s no point running initiatives asking for employee feedback and views if you’re not going to keep them going. It takes time for a brand to build trust with its customers, and employees are no different.

Actions speak louder than words, so make sure you’ve got a way for people to make comments easily and regularly… and then show that you’re taking them on board.

Use their expertise

Your staff are much closer to the day-to-day operations than most members of management are, so they’ll be able to spot problems with a plan a lot sooner.

If your staff are saying things like “it’s never going to work,” then the worst thing you can do is carry on anyway, because you’ll have little to no buy-in, and whether you like it or not, they’re probably right. Instead, explain your thinking and how you arrived at your plans, and then listen to their concerns and ask them for suggestions on what an appropriate alternative might be. Who knows, you might even find that they suggest something which is even more ambitious.

Be honest

Strategy is a broad topic, and it won’t always be possible to listen to people’s views for every decision you make. Some things might be confidential, or you might need to make a decision quickly and not have time to discuss it. Even when you do speak to your staff, you won’t be able to take all of their feedback and comments on board, and there will be cases where you have to do something which is unpopular.

People understand that they can’t be involved in every single management decision, and most of them won’t want to be. If you explain why you had to do what you did, the majority of them won’t have any issues with it, and they’ll appreciate your honesty.

Say thank you!

This one might seem obvious but actually a lot of staff often feel undervalued, particularly as an organisation grows. Strategy is a collaborative effort (or at least, the best ones are) so it’s important to recognise people’s contributions and thank them.

Not only does a “thank you” make people feel valued, but it also helps to motivate them and incentivises them to keep on contributing in the future. You might be surprised how far a simple “thank you” can go, and how many of your competitors overlook it.

Ready to get started?

Hopefully, you can see the benefits that a collaborative approach to strategy brings to a brand. We know these approaches can seem daunting and counterintuitive to some people. After all, management’s responsible for setting strategy, so why would you then go and discuss it with everyone else? But that’s not the point of this exercise. You’re not outsourcing strategy to your staff; you’re using their knowledge to develop the best possible plan for your brand’s future. And you know how the old saying goes…knowledge is power.

Let’s do this

This is the perfect time to start thinking about how you’re going to move out of the pandemic and get ahead of the competition. We help organisations develop innovative strategies and brands based on unique insights from a huge range of sources, including your people. Find out more about our Foundations services, or if you want to have a chat with us and understand how we could help you in more detail, contact us today!

Five simple ways to get your people to buy-in to your strategy.