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Experts At Capturing  Your Great Strategy

In our experience, if you’re living and breathing your business each day, strategy isn’t an exercise in acquiring more – more data, more expertise or more experience. It is most likely an exercise in unlocking what you already possess.

We recently helped David, CEO of a rapidly scaling technology company that has tripled in size over the past 18 months. Very early on David realized that the way they had managed themselves to break out of the start-up orbit does not scale. Being hardworking, tactical and agile, with a lot of micromanagement was not going to be how they would carry on growing, plus employees were finding it exhausting.

He knew that having a strategy and an agreed way of setting really good meaningful goals was the first step. If these are then updated frequently, issues discussed, and the big ones escalated, empowerment was going to be easy for him.

We also recently worked with a CEO called Alex, who believed that expert opinions, research and data analysis would form the backbone of their strategy.

We asked him to go through our process first. Inputs came from a wide range of sources internal to the organization, some of the most insightful being from junior members of staff. Towards the end of the sessions there was a huge strategic ‘aha’ moment. It was a revelation, clarity had emerged from the fog of information overload.

In the end, Alex’s breakthroughs didn’t come from accumulating more information. He learnt that the real magic lay in talking to his team and seeing the existing information through a new lens. It was about breaking the habitual thought patterns that had limited their strategic vision.

Strategy, as it turned out, wasn’t about who had the most data or the most experience. It was about who could see the patterns within the chaos, and who was able to connect the dots. It was about noticing the obvious truths that lay hidden in plain sight.

Alex’s startup didn’t need to spend more time, money, or effort on gathering new information. They had plenty. They just needed to apply and utilize it differently. By fostering a culture of diverse perspectives and open-mindedness, they started uncovering insights that were always there, waiting to be embraced.

This story is a reminder that sometimes, the most impactful solutions don’t come from acquiring more but from seeing differently. It celebrates the idea that strategy can range from an amateur to a semi-pro discipline, accessible to anyone who’s willing to look at where they are with new eyes.

Our process gave them the ability to find and articulate their strategy, and use OKRs to empower teams, and work relatively autonomously towards their goals.

Ensuring Your Strategy & OKRs Are In Perfect Alignment

At the heart of every successful business lies a fundamental truth: success hinges on satisfying a customer need in a specific sector that is better than other available alternatives.This principle is as straightforward as it is profound.

It is all about understanding not just the needs of the customer but also their pain points and the value they seek. This requires you to go beyond surface-level observations; it requires an empathetic and insightful exploration of your customers’ experience. You will need to see the world through their eyes, know their goals, recognize what truly matters to them, and appreciate the choices they are faced with.

The customers wanting this value are your ideal customers. These are the customers that are worth fighting for. This is why we use an ideal customer centric strategic planning process, as a tool in our own consulting practice.

The process we use works for most small to medium scale companies that have a focused value offering with one or more products that deliver the same value to the same group of customers.

Why does it work? Here is why:

• It’s a customer value first approach, not a target revenue first approach. 
• It makes you acknowledge the fact that you’re in a battle for a specific group of people with buying power and choice.
• It makes you work out what matters to customers and why.
• It makes you take a good look at your customers’ choices, including competitors.
• It defines what winning looks like, often for the first time ever.
• It makes you more ambitious.
• It stimulates lateral thinking.
• It makes you list the weapons you have at your disposal, and the weapons you need to acquire to win.
• It sets you up for creating and articulating a great strategy and later the OKRs to execute it – your strategy management system.

If you want great OKRs, pair them with a great strategy, then watch what happens to the bottom-line. This is what our coaching team are experts at, and we’d like to help you.

OKRs Meet Culture

If you want to execute your strategy and achieve your OKRs one of the things that will accelerate that achievement are how teams behave.  How we make decisions and how we behave is guided by a set of values and guiding principles that become central to who we are, and organizations are no different. 

When these are not adhered to or challenged it erodes the fabric of who we are and what you need your company to be. The glue that holds everything together becomes weaker. It’s like a solvent has been applied. Which is why values and guiding principles are the third force multiplier.

The terms “company values” and “guiding principles” are often interchanged. However, a nuanced understanding reveals that they serve distinct purposes and roles in shaping your culture, strategy, and decision-making.

At the heart of your company are its foundational beliefs and guidelines: the values and principles that inform your operations and interactions both internally and with the outside world.

Values are the bedrock of your company – the core beliefs that define its identity, culture, and ethos. They serve as the underpinning convictions that the company will not compromise, regardless of circumstances.

For example, you might emphasize that without trust, nothing else matters. This means that your company will always act in the best interests of its stakeholders, including clients, employees, and shareholders.

A tech company might value innovation, as for a tech company, staying ahead of the curve is vital. Valuing innovative thinking, translates into continually seeking ways to improve areas like services and software.

Guiding principles, on the other hand, are operational tenets or practices that translate your values into actionable behaviors and decision-making protocols. They provide a roadmap for how your company should operate to manifest its values in day-to-day operations.

Stemming from the value of trust, you could have a guiding principle that underscores putting customer needs at the forefront – customer centricity. This might mean creating mechanisms to listen actively to customer feedback and ensuring products are tailored to client requirements.

Building on the value of innovation, you might emphasize teamwork and cross-departmental collaboration as the pathways to groundbreaking ideas. This principle can be seen in practices like hackathons, team brainstorming sessions, and collaborative product development strategies.

Understanding the distinction between company values and guiding principles is crucial. While values are the “why” of an organization, guiding principles are the “how.” This differentiation is crucial in ensuring that its ethos is not only well defined but also consistently practiced throughout your operations.

As part of our standard coaching, we invite you to re-visit your values and guiding principles to check whether they can be aligned and optimized to guide your teams and accurate achievement. 

Aligning Strategy, OKRs and Values with People and Roles

We believe that people are the ultimate multipliers of performance. They exist at all levels, including senior leadership, managers and their reports.

The best leaders and managers can ignite the potential of those around them, creating a chain reaction of motivation, inspiration, and energy that transcends individual capabilities. These people are catalysts for empowerment, encouraging every team member to contribute to our collective achievements in ways they never thought possible. They come with traits like being: “empowering”, “inspirational”, “supportive”, “collaborative”, “trustworthy”, “consistent”, “reliable”, and “respectful”.

The right reports for these managers are their own force multipliers, inspiring those that work alongside them both in their teams and in other teams. These powerhouses are often described using words like “engaged”, “committed”, “productive”, “coachable”, “reflective”, “positive”, “self-less” and the all important “nice”.

Conversely, you will be acutely aware of the impact of people that prevent higher levels of performance happening – those whose presence can dampen spirits, hinder collaboration, and cloud the collective morale.

The process our coaching team will help you use will ensure the right people are in the right seats. It spots and avoid mismatches, and ensures that your work environment remains a source of joy, creativity, and productivity.

Your goal is not only to deliver your strategy. Your goal is to make work a time and space where everyone looks forward to contributing, where voices are heard and valued, and where the passion for what you do is shared and celebrated.

This makes the alignment of strategy with OKRs & KPIs, and OKRs & KPIs with your values and employee roles is an important yet often underappreciated step.

Investing time in creating alignment offers not just clarity but also a mirror reflecting the true composition of a team. Through this process, we can ask:

• Are the right people in the right seats?
• Do roles need to evolve?
• Is it time to step up or to hire anew?

OKRs are not self-fulfilling prophecies. They demand precise role alignment, where each team member’s responsibilities directly contribute to these overarching goals. When goals and roles are misaligned, progress is sub-optimal and efforts misaligned.

The process of aligning OKRs with roles serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it provides goal clarity, ensuring that every team member understands not just the ‘what’ but the ‘why’ of their daily tasks. It’s about painting the bigger picture and then showing each person where they fit within it. This clarity isn’t just about efficiency; it’s a powerful motivator. When employees see the direct impact of their work on the company’s success, their engagement and productivity often soar.

Secondly, this alignment offers some a valuable opportunity for organizational review. It’s time to ask if the right people are occupying the right roles. Just as a gardener prunes a tree to ensure its growth, sometimes a business needs to realign its human resources. This might involve supporting current employees to evolve in their roles, perhaps stepping up to meet new challenges. In other cases, it might mean recognizing the need to bring in fresh talent with the requisite skills and drive.

This alignment is not a one-time task but an ongoing process of adaptation. As your company grows, your people and their roles evolve. This adaptability is vital in maintaining the relevance and effectiveness of both your goals and your workforce.

Aligning your OKRs and KPIs with individual employee roles is not merely an exercise in administrative structuring. It ensures that your human resources are aligned not just your current needs but your future aspirations. It’s a process that asks and answers the fundamental questions of team composition and direction, ensuring that the business is not just moving, but moving in the right direction.

Management Systems & Governance