The Vowels of Strategy: Behaviors and Responsibilities in the Strategic Process

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1 The RBL White Paper Series The Vowels of Strategy: Behaviors and Responsibilities in the Strategic Process MICHAEL PHILLIPS AND DAVE ULRICH

2 The Vowels of Strategy: Behaviors and Responsibilities in the Strategic Process Michael Phillips and Dave Ulrich Recently, we were working with a group of vice-presidents at a large financial services company when the subject turned to strategy and how to become better strategists. These people, several levels removed from the senior leadership team, were bemoaning the fact that they were not really involved in creating the company s strategy, yet they were constantly being asked to become more strategic. This was certainly not the first time we had heard this type of thing. In fact, most conversations around strategy usually focus on one of two areas: first, what exactly is strategy and how do you create it; or second, what roles should employees at different levels of the company play in strategy. One of the problems inherent in either discussion is the idea that strategy is simply a document or a plan. That conception seems to be widely held and becomes very problematic for employees who are not involved in the creation of that strategy yet are often asked to be strategic. May we suggest that the best way to counter this problem is to think in terms of a strategic process where certain responsibilities and specific behaviors lead to the successful implementation of a strategic plan rather than simply of a strategy. With our focus on the second issue of roles in that strategic process, we want to propose a way that all employees within an organization can better understand their responsibility and also easily remember the key behaviors that will lead to the successful implementation of a strategy. We call it the vowels of strategy. We first considered the three major responsibilities in the strategic process: creation, translation, and execution. These three responsibilities map rather nicely onto most organizational charts. The senior leadership has responsibility to create the plan, managers have the responsibility to translate the plan and make it meaningful and comprehensible to all employees, and the front-line employees have the responsibility to execute the plan. For each of these responsibilities, we have identified five behaviors that employees must practice in order to successfully complete their part of the overall strategic process. This is the way that all employees become engaged in the strategic process. This is the way to ensure that there is more than just a plan but instead a process, and that all employees will understand the responsibilities and required behaviors to ensure that the strategy becomes reality. These behaviors, an A, E, I, O, and U for each level of responsibility, make up the vowels of strategy. SENIOR LEADERS At the top levels of an organization, senior leaders have the responsibility to create the strategy. This is what most people think of when they consider what it means to be a strategist and is what keeps people at other levels of an organization from understanding the importance of their responsibilities as part of the strategic process. The creation of a plan is the initiating action in a sequence of events that leads to the successful implementation of strategy. However, it is the overall strategic process and not just this first step that leads to strategy becoming reality. Senior leaders have the responsibility to create a plan that is drawn from careful consideration of the current state of the company, the marketplace, and the broader environment. It has to show the way forward and has to speak to all stakeholders; it has to offer something better than the current state; it has to support the core values of the organization. The five behaviors required for the creation of strategy are: 1. Aspire. Simply stated, it is the vision thing. Senior leaders creating a strategy must aspire to something more than the current state. The strategic plan that they create must appeal to the basic human desire to improve and achieve and to get to a better place while achieving business objectives. The aspirational qualities of the strategy must also be compelling and speak to the desires and emotions of stakeholders. 2. Evaluate. Evaluating current realities as well as the wider environment are keys to creating a strategy. It is not enough for senior leaders to simply consider what is happening inside the company. The creation of strategy demands an evaluation of many things outside the company. Good evaluation also requires looking at the impacts of the strategy at all levels of the organization and for all stakeholders. The Vowels of Strategy The RBL Group

3 3. Integrate. All organizations have existing practices, plans, projects, and, indeed, constraints. An actionable strategy takes these into account, and a wise leadership team will be sure to integrate the current plans with what already exists. 4. Optimize. A meaningful strategy will attempt to optimize a company s resources. Senior leaders need to ensure that they are considering all that they have at their disposal when creating a strategy. To optimize is to utilize to the highest and most complete extent a strategy that does that reaches into all levels of the organization and touches all employees. 5. Uphold. A successful strategy will uphold a company s mission, vision, and values. It will stand in support of, rather than in opposition to, the good that already exists within the organization. Senior leaders are the stewards and guardians of these important differentiators, and strategic plans must uphold what distinguishes the company in the minds of its stakeholders. MANAGERS The role of managers is to translate the strategy so that it is meaningful to employees. Within a company hierarchy, managers generally understand what is important to specific groups of employees much better than the senior leadership. The differences from one group to another may be significant, and the role of these managers is to know their own people, what is important to them, and what will be required of them to make the strategy successful. This responsibility is akin to the role translators play when they take language that is incomprehensible for one party and turn it into something that is meaningful. The good manager also shows the direct connection of the work being done in their area to the high level strategy. We like to think in terms of three degrees of separation, or, in other words, the manager had better be able to show how the activities of his team relate back to and support the high level strategy in no more than three steps. Managers responsibility to translate makes them keys to cascading the strategy and ensuring that it is understood throughout the organization. There are five behaviors for this responsibility in the strategic process: 1. Align. The manager is a gate-keeper, receiving information from senior leadership and then being tasked with cascading that to employees. One of their key behaviors is to align everything such that there is line-of site and clarity in prioritization. 2. Educate. It is not enough to simply translate into meaningful language: managers are also educators they are constantly teaching, and, in the case of strategy, they are educating employees to understand the high level strategy as well as the specific part that they will be playing in ensuring its implementation. As educators, they take things that are new and previously unknown and share information in such a way that it is clear and actionable. 3. Inform. It goes without saying that managers must communicate, communicate, communicate. They need to be constantly informing their staff both through words and actions. They must recognize the inadequacy of single channels of communication and must find ways to creatively and constantly communicate. 4. Organize. Elements of organization include project management, work planning, and prioritization of efforts. It is not enough to only translate, educate, and inform: managers must also ensure that employees know the specific actions that are required of them. The manager needs to organize and enable employees and their actions. 5. Utilize. The manager needs to know their available resources and how to employ them to implement the strategic plan. Utilizing all available resources is a key to ensuring that every employee has a connection to the strategic process and feels that they are making a contribution. FRONT-LINE EMPLOYEES The role of the front-line employees is to execute the plan. Generally, these are the people that actually get the work done. While vitally important, much of what happens in creation and translation of the strategic process is driven by planning, rhetoric, and change management. This, however, is the level at which strategic traction truly takes place. It is here that words become action and the strategic process is brought to successful implementation. There are five behaviors for the successful execution of strategy: 1. Apply. Employees need to take the information they have received from their managers, which has been successfully translated, and then apply it to their own situation and their own work. Application implies a type of attachment such that things cannot be easily separated. That is what happens when employees apply the strategy they become bound to it. 2. Engage. To become engaged requires that employees establish a connection a bond with the strategic plan and indeed, the broader organization. Engagement implies commitment and commitment leads to meaningful contributions on the part of employees. 3. Innovate. Employees can often bring great insight and innovation to the execution of the strategic plan if they are given the opportunity. Wise managers committed to The Vowels of Strategy The RBL Group

4 employee development make sure there is room for these types of innovation. 4. Own. Employees need to find and feel a sense of ownership of the strategy in order to successfully play their role in the process. This is one of the key reasons to think in terms of a strategic process and not just a plan so that there is room for ownership at all levels. The front-line employee must not feel so distant from the strategy and its creation as a plan that they have nothing to do with it they must understand the overall strategy and feel a sense of ownership especially for their part. 5. Understand. Communication is a two way street and just as we believe that the manager needs to communicate constantly, we believe that employees must fulfill their end of the communication process by understanding what has been delivered to them by their manager. Understanding implies that employees will question and inquire and not be satisfied until they are confident that they understand. Finally, there is one other thing we learned in grade school that we have not forgotten, and that is the well-known caveat that in addition to these five vowels, there is sometimes Y. And that may be the most important vowel of all. Y, at all levels, is for You. We believe it is true that implementing a strategy is more about people than it is about plans. It is everyone working together and practicing the appropriate behaviors that will make the process successful because ultimately, in the strategic process, plans and vision deliver promises, but people deliver results. So there you have the vowels of strategy: a simple way to understand the required behaviors for each responsibility at three levels within the organization to ensure that the strategic process is complete and successful. The key is to recognize that when we talk about an organization and its strategy, it is more than just the creation of plans it is an overall process that also requires meaningful translation and successful execution. Once all employees understand their roles, strategy becomes much more than just ideas and concepts, it becomes an actionable process: plans will become reality and all involved from the boardroom to the showroom, from the executive suite to the factory floor will know that they truly are a part of the company strategy. This is the way that all employees at all levels in the organization can become strategic through the practice of specific behaviors which will lead to the fulfillment of their responsibilities within the strategic process. The Vowels of Strategy The RBL Group

5 About the Authors MICHAEL PHILLIPS Michael is a principal with The RBL Group. His work is focused on leadership development and organizational change management and creating high performance individuals and organizations through performance and talent management. Prior to his consulting career, Michael was a university professor. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Michael is the author or editor of more than 35 books, articles, and reviews and has served on the boards of several associations and foundations. DAVE ULRICH Dave has consulted and done research with over half of the Fortune 200. Dave was the editor of the Human Resource Management Journal 1990 to 1999, has served on the editorial board of four other journals, is on the Board of Directors for Herman Miller, is a Fellow in the National Academy of Human Resources, and is co-founder of the Michigan Human Resource Partnership. The Vowels of Strategy The RBL Group

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