Avoid these 3 traps in creating strategies!

This could happen in multinational companies, in small businesses, in government and nonprofit organizations, and at all levels (Team, Product, Business, …).

TRAP 1- Strategy is treated as a thought exercise

With no grounding to the real world and no impact on the organization.

A team sit together for 1 or 2 weeks to create a vision, mission and a set of values for an organization, then they went back to work and nothing changed, no actions taken and people kept doing what they’d always done.

TRAP 2- Strategy is created only by high-level managment

Meaning totally top-down.

The executive management create the strategy, and it is up to the rest of the organization to simply execute on what they are told. This results in less engagement during its execution.

TRAP 3- Strategy is framed as if it is all about mitigating risks

With budget and financial forecast and no emphasis on building innovative ideas in the future.

You may have experienced creating strategy in one of these way, it may be fanciful, totally top-down or purely financially focused and ultimately ineffective.

If not consider yourself lucky, you are in the minority.

Strategy should combine analytics and creativity. It should be both human-centered by putting people in the center of the process and business focused to develop a sustainable competitive advantage.

It should be a social act, the one that invite engagement across the whole organization to gain commitment on its execution and make it happen.