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Strategy Execution
A Simple Way to Test Your Company’s Strategic Alignment
by Jonathan Trevor and Barry Varcoe
May 16, 2016
There is no universal or one-size-fits-all prescription for a winning business. But corporate leaders today seem to agree that strategic alignment is high on the list.
Strategic alignment, for us, means that all elements of a business — including the market strategy and the way the company itself is organized — are arranged in such a way as to best support the fulfillment of its long-term purpose. While a company’s purpose generally doesn’t change, strategies and organizational structures do, which can make chasing “alignment” between strategy and the organization feel like chasing an elusive will-o’-the-wisp.
As if that weren’t tough enough, another challenge for corporate leaders is how to make sense of strategic alignment at both the team / business unit level (or division or department, however it is classified) and at the enterprise level.
And yet it is possible. For example, as it grew, Facebook found that its early “move fast and break things” culture had to be funneled into focused technical teams and product groups to make its product development process faster and less erratic, and for it to have a chance of meeting the demands of its new public shareholders following its IPO. The current mantra is “Move fast with stable infrastructure”, which speaks to the organizational design challenge of operating at scale in a fickle and volatile world.
There is a simple test you can perform to start an honest conversation about strategy and organizational effectiveness where you work. Think of your company in its entirety, or perhaps select a strategically important element of it, such as a growth area upon which future success depends or its primary source of income, and consider the following two questions:
1. How well does your business strategy support the fulfillment of your company’s purpose? Purpose is what the business is trying to achieve. Strategy is how the business will achieve it. Purpose is enduring – it is the north star towards which the company should point. Strategy involves choices about what products and services to offer, which markets to serve, and how the company should best set itself apart from rivals for competitive advantage. Think of your own business and ask yourself, using a scale of 1 – 100, How well does our strategy support the fulfillment of our purpose? (If you are unclear on your company’s strategic priorities, or its purpose, then the likelihood is that it does not.)
