21 Nov The Strategy-Culture Cascade
Over the last several months, we have gathered some of the top HR and culture leaders for monthly dinners Industry Nights to forge meaningful connections, share fresh perspectives, and tackle the toughest challenges shaping the future of work.
During one recent evening, we invited over 20 executives to discuss people-led strategies to improve business outcomes. This post explores one of the insights that emerged from this dynamic community of leaders and also includes some actionable steps and inspiration for aligning around a common strategy. Enjoy!
Why Alignment is Critical for Success
In our work across large, influential organizations, we are finding that many leadership teams are failing at the foundations: aligning on strategy, priorities, and focus. We don’t name this necessarily as a critique. Indeed, there is no playbook for navigating the modern world of business, and it is one tough job.
But, as businesses become more complex with urgent challenges and cross-functional stakeholder networks, misalignment at the top trickles down and negatively impacts the rest of the organization. This lack of alignment leads to burnout, low engagement, and retention issues. Ultimately, it harms productivity, innovation, and performance—which are the very things CEOs are demanding.
5 Steps to Bridge the Strategy Gap
So, what’s a leader to do? Below are the five steps we take our clients through to align on a common vision for success and inspire their organizations to bring it to life:
Step 1: Leadership Alignment
C-suite teams must get back to leadership basics. This means defining where the company is going, why, what’s being prioritized, and—just as importantly—de-prioritized. Without clarity and focus at the top, it’s impossible to drive meaningful change across the organization.
Step 2: Enroll Influencers
Find your internal influencers, and make them key drivers of change. These are the people who will champion your strategy and help embed it across the company. Host forums, offer coaching, and use co-creation to engage this group in crafting rollout tactics and ideas.
Step 3: Engage Employees
Translate the broader strategy into something employees can relate to at the team level. This is about helping every employee understand their role in driving success, while also breaking down how the business operates. Help employees see how they contribute to the bigger picture.
A key part of this process is vulnerability. Leadership must be open about gaps, unknowns, and assumptions. This invites employees into the problem-solving process and strengthens their sense of purpose.
Step 4: Redesign Ways of Working
Co-create processes with employees that align with strategic success. This involves redesigning key workflows, experimenting with collaboration models, and establishing continuous learning cycles. Small, cross-functional teams working on high-priority initiatives (like lighthouse projects) can model new ways of working that help drive broader organizational change.
Ways of Working can often feel like an ‘everything and nothing’ phrase. Here are a few specific examples and case studies of tactics we use with our clients:
Actionable Tactics to Redesign Ways of Working
Process (Re)Design
What:
Redesigning processes that drive team success, like product design, deal flow, or marketing funnels. Teams identify broken aspects and co-create solutions.
How:
- Visualize key processes through organizational listening and mapping.
- Identify the most impactful bottlenecks and design an MVP version of improvements to test within 4-12 weeks.
Case Study:
Growing Future Leaders at a Global Tech Company
Collaboration Stack Revamp
What:
Reimagining how teams meet, communicate, and collaborate. Create a new stack of collaboration habits aligned with the strategy.
How:
- Host a session to design your ideal collaboration stack, rethinking communication cadences, tools, and team expectations.
- Test the new model for 4-12 weeks, and iterate based on team feedback.
Case Study:
Realizing a Global Healthcare Leader’s CX Vision
Reflection and Iteration Loops
What:
The antithesis of silver bullet thinking: building a continuous learning loop to reflect on what’s working, what’s not, and make iterative improvements.
How:
- Schedule monthly or bi-monthly reflection sessions to review team progress and challenges.
- Encourage the team to co-create solutions and test new ideas for improvement in the next cycle.
Case Study:
Developing Innovation Leaders at a Global Tech Company
Cross-Functional Sprints
What:
Hosting mission-based sprints with cross-functional teams to tackle previously identified blind spots and unlock organizational progress.
How:
- Identify critical challenges or blind spots and create small, agile teams from different departments to work on addressing them.
- Run sprints focused on rapid, creative problem-solving and use outcomes to model new ways of working.
Case Study:
Accelerating Market Growth at an Electronics Brand
Lighthouse Projects
What:
High-priority initiatives that are essential to the organization’s strategy and fertile grounds for proving new methods and ways of working.
How:
- Select 1-5 top-priority projects and introduce new tools, mindsets, and collaboration methods.
- Use these lighthouse projects to demonstrate what transformation looks like in action and replicate success in other areas.
The Dreaded Re-org
What:
Evaluating and restructuring organizational design to enhance agility, collaboration, and responsiveness, ensuring alignment with strategic goals.
How:
- Assess whether your current organizational structure supports collaboration and agility.
- Where necessary, re-organize teams or divisions to remove silos and enable faster decision-making and cross-functional work.
Case Study:
A Working Model for Digital Transformation at a Global Investment Firm
Step 5: Establish a Feedback Loop
Continuous reflection and communication are crucial. Capture success stories, lessons learned, and employee contributions to create momentum. Transparency and vulnerability throughout this process build trust, ownership, and engagement, enabling teams to reflect on their progress and adapt.
Start aligning today.
Whether you’re a CHRO or any leader within a complex, rapidly changing organization, creating alignment and engaging employees is essential for driving transformation. Start by getting on the same strategic page, and then make your employees true partners in execution through co-creation and clear processes.
If you’re interested in learning how we might support your team or organization in building alignment and delivering on a common vision, send us a note to set up a discovery call with one of our team leads.
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This article is part of our series on HR, change and transformation. Check out past issues, and sign up for our newsletter to get future issues sent directly to your inbox.
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