Enterprise & Corporate · the corporate path
Strategy approved. Now run it.
Board, budget, floor, review, bottom line: five places a corporate strategy leaks, and where we stop it.
The strategy path
Five places a corporate strategy is won or lost.
Most strategies leak at more than one. Start at the one you are living.
BOARD · 01 / 05
The strategy was approved. No two people state it the same way.
A strategy that cannot be reduced to one number cannot be held to anything.
The evidence
A strategy is agreed in a room and then restated by everyone who leaves it, each version shaped by what that person is accountable for. Nothing in the process forces the versions back together. What gets approved is a direction. What gets carried out is a set of interpretations, none of them wrong enough to correct.
Where we come in. We build the outside view your own team cannot produce from inside, then hold the strategy to a single number before the year starts, not after it ends.
BUDGET · 02 / 05
The priority changed. The budget kept its old shape.
A priority that moves no money and no people is a preference.
The evidence
Money and people are already committed when the new priority arrives, and commitments are harder to withdraw than to make. So the plan is approved without the reallocation it requires, and the new work proceeds alongside everything it was meant to replace. Announcing a priority costs nothing. Funding one costs something.
Where we come in. We test the plan against where the money and the people actually sit, and name what has to move, who moves it, and what stops if it does not.
FLOOR · 03 / 05
The strategy changed. The work did not.
Work only changes when the rule for who decides what changes.
The evidence
A strategy reaches the organisation as a message, and an organisation can receive a message without changing anything. The decisions stay where they were, the approvals stay with the same people, and the work runs the way it ran. Activity rises, because the message asked for it, and nothing underneath is different.
Where we come in. We redesign the decisions before the work, and write down who holds each one, so the change survives the people who made it.
REVIEW · 04 / 05
Every review reports the activity. None reports the drift.
A number has to move before the result does, or it reports history.
The evidence
A review is built to account for what has been spent and done, because that is what it is asked to defend. So it reports what has already happened, and the numbers that would signal a problem early are not the numbers on the page. The strategy is judged on effort until the results arrive to judge it.
Where we come in. We build the leading indicators and the thresholds that trip them, so the review produces a decision rather than a report.
BOTTOM LINE · 05 / 05
The number moved. Nobody can prove who moved it.
A result no one can trace is a result no one can repeat.
The evidence
A result arrives as one number, and many decisions have a claim on it. With nothing connecting the decisions to the number, every claim is equally credible and none can be tested. So the year gets explained rather than understood, and the next plan is built on the same explanations.
Where we come in. We close the loop from decision to result, so the next planning round starts from what actually worked.