When you communicate your strategy, lavish attention on the inspiring future and the immediate action required to create it.
The power of the organisation is unleashed when people can connect the motivation of the inspiring future with the immediate action that has to be taken NOW to get there. The strategy will have no power to pull forwards any employee who cannot make this link.
It is fine to leave the intervening steps sketchy. The CEO does not need to lay out all the details about how to execute the strategy. For one thing, the CEO does not have all the answers! Secondly, the rest of the organisation will feel real ownership of the strategy if they fill out the blanks themselves.
The CEO’s attention can therefore be placed on painting the vivid and inspiring future, and at the same time ensuring that there is total clarity about the specific measurable results that have to be achieved now to make it possible.
This creative tension can be maintained as results are delivered, with the CEO continually focusing attention on the action and results that point the direction towards the strategy.
Your people will always have clarity about how the results they are achieving contribute to creating an inspiring future.
