Driving your company without a strategy: what can go wrong

“We’re not moving fast enough!”

“The team doesn’t know how to get things done quickly.”

“We can’t stop right now. We have too many things that we need to get done.”

“These are time-sensitive decisions that need to be made. We have to do it this way or it won’t get done.”

Over the past few years, I’ve heard some version of the above from countless leaders. There always seems to be an urgency to turn things around and move the organization forward. But the fact they are talking to me is likely because they haven’t been able to effectively make the transition from an urgent mindset to a strategic mindset. 

No matter what challenges your organization is experiencing, 9 times out of 10, there is a lack of strategic vision guiding the organization. Leaders reading this may raise an eyebrow at this point…

No way! Most companies have a strategic vision that the whole organization understands. 

Nope. 

When I interview individuals at our client organizations to better understand how we can support them, these are some of the common sentiments I hear: 

• There isn’t a communal sense of what the organization is doing and why and how we get there.

• There is not enough transparency about why certain initiatives are prioritized over others and what that means for the organization. 

• There are great ideas but not great follow-through on how to prioritize and implement changes and add processes to support the company. It’s frustrating and confusing. 

• We tried OKRs but many people didn’t understand how the OKRs connected to their work. 

• There’s a “shoot from the hip” or “reactive” culture. Everyone is doing everything…

A  lack of a well-defined short and long-term strategy hinders a team’s ability to create and execute a product strategy and roadmap.

When we kick off with a new client, we almost always need to start on organization strategy and alignment to ensure we have a strong base for advice and skill building we later put into action together to truly be absorbed into the culture of the organization. For some clients, we may have to spend months working with the leadership on building out the vision and strategy for the organization, while others require a shorter strategy refinement and alignment-building phase.

Regardless of where the organization is at, clients that embrace the difficult strategy work are the most successful. Sometimes we get pushback from clients. But in order to move fast and efficiently towards company goals, you need to slow down and assess the situation. 

A friend recently told me a story of how they noticed that their colleague’s tire had a HUGE nail in it. They immediately told the person about the nail and suggested they get a new tire. 

The car owner is in grad school, has a job, and has a lot of priorities but their car isn’t one of them. My friend was concerned, so she eventually convinced the person to let her check the tire pressure of all the tires and at least take a look at the tire with the nail. It turns out that all of the tires had low pressure, making it not only dangerous but economically inefficient to drive the car like that. They filled up the tires but the car owner was adamant that they wouldn’t replace the tires. 

My friend mentioned that the car could break down on the way to take the bar exam in a few months and wouldn’t that be terrible? The car owner said they had plenty of time to figure out the tires until the exam. It’s very possible that the car will continue to perform adequately for the next few months but it’s also possible it’ll break down on the highway.

It’s basically just like driving your company without a strategy. Doing the minimal quick repairs to keep things moving without addressing the core issues (strategy::cough cough:: ) that are already slowing the company down.

So what happens when organizations don’t prioritize their strategy work and just keep pushing forward without reassessing? 

1 - It gets harder to scale

There is no alignment on the organization’s strategic direction. So various people continue to work directionless and struggle to pinpoint the reason for ups and downs quarter over quarter. 

In the real world, it could look like this:

Co-founders/leaders are not aligned on the vision and strategy of the organization which keeps them from articulating priorities and allocating resources for maximum payoff. Leaders seem frustrated they cannot grow at the rate they want to and are not able to successfully transition from a scrappy “all-hands-on-deck” startup mode to a deliberate-growth mode. 

The sales team is given aggressive annual targets but no clear view of what services they should be pushing with current clients, what services and products they need to push to new clients, and what markets they are targeting (current or new) for each of these initiatives. Eventually, the sales team won’t hit their goals and leadership will be confused as to why. 

2 - Staff cannot perform at their highest level of capability

Teams are not getting clear directions and expectations so they cannot make decisions and help the organization move towards its goals. 

In the real world, it could look like this: 

Staff is unable to take initiative or act independently which causes frustration for them and the leadership. People are either quitting or being let go because there is not a clearly communicated strategy for them to align their work to.

A Product Manager is working on 20+ different types of work every day, moving from one task to another every 10 minutes. They don’t know how their work is connected to the company’s strategy to grow. They don’t know how to take on more responsibility and get promoted because leadership hasn’t clarified what they want the company to become. This leads to people quitting or burning out in their current roles.

3 - Competition gains an advantage

Without a clear strategic vision, companies can't differentiate themselves from their competitors. They can't identify their unique value proposition and how to position themselves in the market. This leads to a loss of competitive advantage and could even result in the company's failure.

In the real world, it could look like this:

The team is building features that the client didn’t ask for and they are waiting on functionality and speed to increase with the current system. Sales are down and the leadership is asking the product team to build out product roadmaps and financials to present to investors but the investors aren’t quite sure if there’s value in the business and they move on to better opportunities. 

Deprioritizing strategy work at your organization will hold your company back from its true potential. Build in time and energy for the difficult strategy work needed to run and keep your organization moving through the ups and downs.

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If it feels like your company isn’t prioritizing strategy work, we can help. Take our free diagnostic to find out exactly what challenges are the highest priority and how we can start tackling them together. Take the diagnostic now.