Strategy, purpose and culture: Is your triangle broken?
Photo by Headway on Unsplash
I can’t stop thinking about this article I shared on LinkedIn recently from HBR: Does Your Company’s Culture Reinforce Its Strategy and Purpose? It positions purpose (the north star and inspiration for talent), strategy (the plan to achieve success) and culture (what talent experiences) as a triangle. If one side of the triangle changes, the other two sides must also change or the triangle collapses. It even states the obvious: a communication plan can’t fix a broken triangle.
There are many things communicators can do when they’re brought in as part of the planning team, though. Communicators can ensure the purpose and strategy are straightforward as well as easy to understand and remember. They can be sure they are what they say they are: a north star and a plan. Communicators can provide insight into whether the purpose and strategy align with the talent experience. If the authentic alignment is there, then they can develop a communication plan that spans push and pull experiences as well as channels and resources, embedding the purpose and strategy into the DNA of the organization’s culture.
Use your words
A purpose articulates an organization’s reason for being, its north star, the reason the organization does everything it does. Purpose is inclusive of values and people-centricity. It is not about making money, although certainly businesses exist to do so. Examples:
For those who make the world. (Stanley Black & Decker)
Helping people on their path to better health. (CVS Health)
To bring the world within reach. (Expedia Group)
Each of these examples are simple. If I worked for one of these companies, I could easily remember its purpose. Each could be easily incorporated into most communications. For leaders within these organizations, each is clear—and if something doesn’t fall within the parameters of the purpose, it’s out of scope. In terms of the red thread narrative, the purpose is the overarching theme.
The strategy is the plan. You have to articulate a plan in order to action it. Everyone within the organization should know the overarching strategy, understand how their team and role support it, and have clarity what they need to do to achieve success:
Increase our digital marketing investment targeted to younger audiences.
Expand our client base in emerging markets.
Modernize our technology infrastructure.
It’s always surprising when leaders choose not to share their strategies with their people—the people who were hired to execute the plan. To state the obvious, people can’t execute a plan without knowing what it is. But also, when people are kept in the dark their work starts feel tedious, even purposeless. As the Great Reshuffle continues to play out, this means many of the best and brightest will be easily lured away by the promise of a few more dollars and hope for a better experience.
Then there is culture. I’m not talking about the employee value proposition. I mean the culture an organization’s people experience. If your organization says it values diversity, to ring true your leadership lineup has to display diversity across race, gender and more. If your organization says candor is a priority but there are repercussions when people speak frankly, it isn’t. If your strategy—the reason every role in your organization exists—is as closely guarded as an elite trade secret, it should come as no surprise when your people aren’t aligned and struggle to deliver.
For example
I worked at one point with a leadership team for a large, global organization. The overarching enterprise has a well-articulated purpose. In my time working with the business, we were diligent about incorporating into all our messaging. But the business positioned itself as disconnected from the rest of the enterprise so the appetite for reinforcing the purpose was inconsistent.
The business also prided itself on its complexity. It struggled to articulate a 10,000-foot view of itself. So it did not come as a surprise that there was no appetite for communicating a strategy. I was not asked to sit in on the strategy development but when asked to create a plan for it, what I was given wasn’t even a strategy. It was an elaborate outline of statements and unsustainable reporting matrixes. There was no mention of purpose, mission or the business’ most important asset: its people. Worse, top leaders actively resisted communicating the strategy to anyone within the business beyond themselves and a select few.
Attrition was unusually high, hovering in the mid-20s percentage-wise (10% is generally considered the very top end of good). Leaders desperately needed insight into everything from business goals to strategy to how their performance was measured. The culture was struggling at best.
In the analogy of a triangle, purpose, strategy and culture weren’t even a broken triangle. The triangle had been smashed apart.
So then, what?
Thoughtful leaders create impactful outcomes. Most leaders know to tick the boxes on putting out purposes, strategies, employee value propositions. But it’s not enough to put them out there and dust your hands of them. They have to be socialized: in messaging, in meetings, through updates on progress toward success. They are an integral part of the business and they can’t be achieved if no one knows about them.
As communicators, we don’t always get invitations to all the conversations we should be a part of. To up the percentage of invitations we do get, though, we have to operate as strategic advisors even when we were simply told to put together a communication plan:
Offer to chime in on the purpose and strategy to ensure they’re straightforward, easy to remember, and are what they say they are: a north star and a plan.
Nudge when necessary to foster alignment between the purpose, strategy and talent experience.
Embed the purpose and strategy into the DNA of the organization through communications.
There is a lot good communications can accomplish. It’s one of the things I love about our work. Build the plans when you’re asked, of course. Move the needles when and where you can—even if it's just a little. And remember, a communication plan can’t fix a broken triangle.
This blog was originally posted on LinkedIn on 28n June 2022.
