Okay, so in the last episode we were talking all about how strategy has become this like monstrous, complex stack of outputs. It is giant PowerPoint decks, endless list of metrics, initiative overload where we have like 15 different initiatives we're going to tackle and nobody understands which one we're going to prioritize first.
Right? We have come to this place where complexity equals credibility and success. It's almost like annual planning at the beginning of this year is like this pageant show of who can come up with like the quote unquote sexiest strategy. The most complex, rigorous, fancy powerpoint deck with all of the charts and the metrics and the things.
And that's like what gives you status. And I really want to ask you, when you are going through the strategic planning process, what is your motivation? Is it to check the box on this process that you need to do? You know, I've got to submit the deck, I've got to put my SMART goals for my team into the system.
Is it to appease, like, a process? Is it to appease your peers, or your stakeholders, or your more senior leaders about, Oh, I need to justify what my team's doing, and justify the resources I'm requesting, the budget I'm requesting, or, you know, I have to show that, My team's going to make the biggest impact on the goals that they cascaded to me.
Or, is it about providing radical clarity for your team and where you are taking them this year? Truly. And I'm not saying that's the afterthought. I'm saying is that the main thought? Do you go into the strategic planning process saying, How can I provide radical clarity for my team so that every action they take, every decision they make, they know how to do so in alignment with With our strategy that's going to move us closer to achieving that vision we've outlined because that's the purpose of strategy.
Yet for many of us, that's become second nature. That no longer is the focus. Instead, we are doing almost performative strategy where it is more about appeasing those around us and less about focusing on our team. for listening. So as you're going through the strategic planning process this year, I want you to ask this question.
Is this deck truly going to help bring clarity to my team? Are they going to be pulling up a hundred page PowerPoint deck, trying to figure out if they should prioritize task A or task B? Do these metrics actually inspire them? Are they going to be tracking how they're moving the needle on all ten metrics every day?
If I ask my team what our top three priorities are in 2025, could they tell me? Based off of what I've given them for our strategy. Those are the questions I want you to be asking. Because if your strategy is built for everyone else, then you have left your team with zero clarity as to what they're supposed to be doing.
And that is the purpose of strategy, is to guide our teams. And it's not because, like, leaders don't do this out of, like, ill intention. You want to provide clarity for your team, but the thing is, a lot of us have lost the art of what strategic planning is. And so we go through the motions, we go through the annual planning process, we go lock ourselves in a conference room with all of our peers and come up with these giant plans and then push them on our teams.
Because we don't know anything different. We don't know any other way of doing it. And so we feel like that these giant, complex plans are the only way. But here's the thing. When you overload your team with a bunch of information, a bunch of decks, a bunch of priorities, it only leads to a lack of clarity.
It only shouts and chaos. A lack of certainty, a lack of confidence, because I can't pick three to five priorities, we have to have 15. And I want you to ask yourself, if you can't clearly communicate your strategy succinctly, How do you think your team's going to be able to understand it? How do you think your team is going to be able to rally behind it?
Because let me tell you, I'm sure as heck not gung ho to rally behind a 100 page PowerPoint deck. To rally behind 10 arbitrary KPIs. That doesn't inspire me. That doesn't make me show up to work each day like, Yes, we're gonna move that metric! Because it doesn't have meaning. It doesn't mean anything to me.
I don't understand the value between that and my work.
So that is why we need to be actually creating strategies for our team. Strategies that bring clarity to our team. Strategies that our team is fully freaking bought into. Fully on fire for. Because they had a piece in developing it. Because we didn't push something on them. We brought them along to it.
And if you want to understand a new way of doing strategy that incorporates your team, you need to be inside Activating Strategy. We'll link that for you below. But if you want a strategy that's actually going to do something, rather than sit on a deck in a file that you barely open, except for once a quarter when someone's asking you for a progress update, you We're not doing strategy right.
Okay guys, ask the questions. Let's go do the work.
