Align Corporate Strategy With Capabilities to Improve Execution

Despite their executive roles, leaders of major enterprise functions often struggle to identify and deliver demonstrable business value. By clearly identifying “what we want to achieve” and then establishing the choices determining “how we get there,” you can define an executable strategy and create a more thoughtful roadmap for accomplishing it.

The OGSIM (objectives, goals, strategies, initiatives and measures) framework provides a line of sight to develop comprehensive goals for the organization by:

• Defining long-term objectives and near-term goals

• Establishing big-picture strategies for achieving goals and objectives

• Setting initiatives for executing the strategy

• Outlining the metrics that will measure success

This framework simplifies effectively cascading responsibility and accountability for strategy execution to every leader and team. It keeps the necessary focus on maximizing the contributions of a given function while maintaining strategic alignment with business goals.

The OGSIM framework focuses on developing the set of contributions required of the primary functions and roles that will own a given strategy. For example, a strategy to grow revenue via new product development might be assigned to the R&D team, which is primarily responsible for creating new products.

After choosing which strategies to pursue, use the OGSIM framework to:

• Establish responsibilities

• Set clear strategic goals

• Determine what capabilities and changes in functional performance are needed to deliver on the goals

From there, determine what initiatives will deliver the desired outcomes, what contributions might need to be developed to advance the strategy, and where performance improvement is required.

It’s a challenge to maintain high engagement on a strategy continuously in flux. Design thinking provides an opportunity to stress-test the practicality of the plan against the principal elements of the operating model — people, governance, resources and organizational capabilities — before launching it.

Design thinking is a multidisciplinary process that solves complex, challenging problems in a feasible, sustainable and meaningful way. Through a series of questions, experiments, prototypes and feedback loops intended to discern the deeper, typically unstated needs of each business unit and stakeholder, design thinking applies creativity and discovery to solve concrete needs. For example, easing perceived functional rigidities or reducing the time required for planning.

This textured understanding of business opportunities and risks can fuel a customized strategic planning process that improves engagement by helping stakeholders see the underlying business drivers for strategy and allowing them to participate in co-designing the planning journey. In sum, this ensures strategic planning will be relevant to the business, practical to implement and convenient to do.

The strategic planning process, while critical, is one of dozens of corporate processes in which business and functional leaders participate.

Create more room for quality strategic planning by taking a zoomed-out look at all planning-related activities in the organization. Identify moments of compatibility between strategy, business and function work. When synergies don’t exist, the strategy team can actively create them by considering:

• Resequencing strategy workflows

• Reducing the number or effort of strategy workflows

• Reusing nonstrategy workflows to eliminate the need to engage the business altogether