Strategy sessions should produce fewer, not more, solutions.
by Tijs Besieux, PhD
When senior leaders gather for a gut-check on how their company is realizing its strategy, you may see one of the holiest artifacts in strategy sessions: a flip-over, jam-packed with sticky notes.
And on that plethora of sticky-notes, in an attempt to improve how the company makes strategy work, you may read things like:
Role clarity (RASCI??)
Accountability!
Walk the talk on customer-centricity
Streamline KPIs
Drive AI-native mindset
Connect the why, what, how in change comms
*/d$$/adt---plen (something obviously well-intended, but no one could read it afterward)
Reduce compliance complexity!!!
OTIF (the only metric we need across the value chain!)
Getting to a set of agreed-upon solutions to improve strategy is already an achievement. A session like this takes up half a day, and the facilitator works hard to guide the leaders from roadblocks to solutions.
Appraising this artifact, seasoned executives will probably feel something besides the excitement and consensus in the room: discomfort. Because they know there is no time or space for the flip-over beyond the session. As leaders head out to face other obstacles, agreeing that “all of this needs to be top priority moving forward”, the list of solutions becomes a backlog that tragically rots away in the venue’s garbage can.
Leadership sessions should produce fewer solutions, not more.
In a recent session with 35 senior leaders, we tried a different approach. All 35 agreed that to improve cross-functional collaboration, it was, first and foremost, up to them, as leaders, to start behaving differently. Specifically, instead of defining and executing goals “on their turf” without considering input from or impact on other departments, they should start with the end-to-end chain in mind and aim to improve their department from that perspective.
There were probably 1,000 other things they could improve, but we decided to stick to the one leadership behavior change they all agreed on, however painful that realization was. That gave the group time and focus to take this solution and work out a plan to get it from this session to day-to-day reality.
We asked: “What needs to be true for this behavior to be the company-wide norm?” From that question, we landed on three solutions (full accountability with the CEO!) to implement:
Leaders, when working with their teams to set goals, need to cross-check with key stakeholders in the value chain to assess alignment and resolve potential friction.
Leaders who want to get promoted need to demonstrate cross-silo leadership. They should not only excel at operating their department but also strengthen the cross-functional chain.
At least twice a year, leaders need to gather feedback both within and outside their department on how well they enable cross-functional collaboration.
Focus on the crux to improve strategy, and obsess about making the shift from idea to execution by removing friction.